Liberty Quote
[Wayne] Swan is a hard worker and spends a lot of time poring over briefs
— Judith Sloan-
Recent Comments
- miltonf on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Dot on Happy Australia Day
- rickw on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Cassie of Sydney on Happy Australia Day
- miltonf on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Dot on The economic consequences of Covid
- Cassie of Sydney on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Yarpos on Happy Australia Day
- Dot on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Mark M on The economic consequences of Covid
- calli on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Dot on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Cassie of Sydney on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Crossie on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- feelthebern on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Dot on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Xword on Happy Australia Day
- Alan on The economic consequences of Covid
- calli on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- calli on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Crossie on The economic consequences of Covid
- 1735099 on US post-election thread IX: We got so tired of winning that we stopped winning
- Iain Russell on Bruce’s Bull
- Tintarella di Luna on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Megan on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- DrBeauGan on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Baa Humbug on Bruce’s Bull
- Tom on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Tom on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Tom on Open Forum: January 23, 2021
-
Recent Posts
- The economic consequences of Covid
- Bruce’s Bull
- Happy Australia Day
- Red Kerry embarrasses a Liberal government one last time
- Leave the gong – take the cannoli
- New US protectionism confirmed
- Unit Stands Down
- If there were a military coup in the United States it would look just like this
- Insurrection: ABC incites left-wing extremists to endanger lives
- The left are not hypocrites, they are totalitarian loons with an agenda
- Midgets overlooked
- American Jothic
- It’s official “the politics of carbon is ended”!
- German showing the way to the green transition – UPDATED
- Winston Smith’s World
- Administration incites terrorist attack on Ohio cathedral
- Bigotry
- It’s just the start with worse to come
- The Basement Insurrection
- Do the states have robust plans to pursue net zero?
- Unity: when leftists can hate and harm anybody unopposed
- The State vs. Pineapple
- 24 hours after Biden was sworn in as Confederate President…
- Open Forum: January 23, 2021
- Music Maestro: January 22, 2021
- Vaping and combustible cigarettes are substitutes
- Not because she, say, allowed 820 people to die of coronavirus
- Jack Dorsey backs assassination of Donald Trump
- Biden restores re-education
- Australia will share the adverse economic fallout from Biden’s energy policies
Archives
Pages
Blogroll
- 38 South
- ABC The Drum
- AEI Ideas
- Alex
- all right, all right
- Andrew Bolt
- Andrew McIntyre
- Andrew Norton – New
- Andrew Norton – Old
- Arnold Kling
- Aussie Macro Moments
- Becker – Posner
- Bill Mitchell – billy blog
- Bob McGee
- Cafe Hayek
- Calculated Risk
- Calling Bullshit
- Captain Capitalism
- Carpe Diem (New)
- Carpe Diem (Old)
- Causes of the crisis
- Chalk Bunny
- Charles Richardson
- Chicago University – Pro Market
- Chris Snowdon
- Club Troppo
- Confessions of a College Professor
- Consumer Choice Center
- Continental Telegraph
- Conversable Economist
- Coordination Problem
- Core Economics
- Cryptoeconomics
- Dan Wang
- Daniel Greenfield
- David Hart
- Diane Coyle
- Dick Puddlecote
- Econ Journal Watch
- EconAcademics
- Econbrowser
- EconLog
- Econofact
- Econometrics Beat
- Economic Education Initiative
- Essential Hayek
- Fama/French
- Fault Lines
- Fiscal Times
- Foundation for Economic Education
- Freedom and Prosperity Academy
- Greg Mankiw
- Grey Enlightenment
- Guido Fawkes
- Harry Clarke (Temporary)
- Head Rambles
- Homer Paxton
- How does your MP vote
- Institutional Economics
- International Liberty
- Islam and Liberty Network
- Jim Rose
- John Cochrane
- John Lott
- John Quiggin
- John Taylor
- Journal of Economic Perspectives
- Julie Borowski
- Keith Hennessey
- Legal Insurrection
- Liberty Law Blog
- Liberty Works
- Loaded Dogma
- Macrobusiness
- Mannkal Foundation
- Marginal Revolution
- Marius Kloppers
- Mark the Ballot
- Mark the Graph
- markedlymacrotoo
- Market Urbanism
- Master Resource
- Matt Ridley
- Menzies House
- Michael Oakeshott Association
- Michael Smith
- Michel Rauchs
- Miranda Devine
- Money Illusion
- MyGovCost
- Natural Order – Christopher Lingle
- New Economist
- Notes on Liberty
- Offsetting Behaviour
- Oliver Hartwich
- On Line Opinion
- Opinion Dominion
- Paul Johnson Archives
- Peter Fenwick
- Peter Martin
- Philippa Martyr
- Piled Higher and Deeper
- Pointman
- Political Calculations
- Potemkin's Village
- Poverty Cure
- Prick with a fork
- Principles of Forecasting
- Quadrant Online
- Queensland Economy Watch
- Quillette
- Raph Koster
- Reflections on Liberty and Power
- Retraction Watch
- Rhino economics
- ricardian ambivalence
- Robert Murphy
- Roger Kerr (archive)
- Rosemary Fryth
- Skepticlawyer
- Sound Money
- Spiked
- Sports Economist
- Statista
- Stop Gillard's Carbon Tax
- Streetwise Professor
- Stubborn Mule
- Taking Liberties (Simon Clark)
- Tax Foundation
- Tax Rambling
- TaxProf
- The Baseline Scenario
- The Black Steam Train
- The Marcus Review
- The Moronic Lodge
- The TaxPayers' Alliance
- The Visible Hand
- The Wentworth Report
- Think Markets
- Thomas the Think Engine
- Tim Blair
- Tim Worstall
- Truth on the Market
- Vox CEPR Policy Portal
- William Briggs – Statistician
Meta
It will not be forgotten by the families of 39 Afghans.
Ever…
Check out the pics of Donnelly’s models.
Well done.
Would have been nice to know what scale they are in.
Lady journalist evidently didn’t think to ask.
They should have thought about that before allowing their shithole country harbour terrorists and drug dealers then letting them thrive. No sympathy whatsoever for them or their country . A handful less moozlims to worry about is not a terrible outcome.
And before you rant on about your Nam experience ad-nauseam yet again numbnutz, I want hard men manning my Defense Force outposts at night. Not whingeing whiney turds like you.
If this Anger possessed the power, he would be culling from the top down, to ensure that FORCOMD was like SOCOMD, I.E. run by warriors and competents and adults. At every level.
Very many years ago, a new GOC was appointed to whatever Forces Command was then called (possibly Field Force Command). He looked around his HQ staff, and decreed that too many were unfit. Each day would therefore start with a run, led by the GOC. Not too many days into this regime, while leading from the front, he collapsed and died from a heart attack. The next GOC might not have been so enthusiastic, but the dirt strip at Holsworthy was named for the deceased GOC.
Reminds of a similar decree by Montgomery (the soldier, not the fat fascist fool) when he took over a new command in the UK in late 1940. His Chief MO advised that many of the staff officers could be killed by such a policy. Monty’s reaction? Better that they die in training than at a crucial moment during a battle.
The banks join volunteer religious educators in being banned from Comrade Andrews’ social engineering Wen’s:
Nice Chinese men give very free money for all Victoria.
Pay for road, not get road, consultant get paid, all OK.
quite effing so.
Ever the windsock, Scummo is picking up on a lot of public blowback directed at the Inquiry and it’s gutless top brass for throwing the hard boys under the bus. Good but he needs to follow through to count the heads on the pikes.
These would be more your style.
Communist scum.
You’re such an old commo bore, numbnutz.
Once the My Lai bad deeds became known it took only 18 months for the US to successfully prosecute the perpetrators. Given the amount of work that has already been done on the Australian SAS bad deeds it should be possible to bring the alleged offenders to justice here at least as quickly.
How long did it take to successfully prosecute the perpetrators of the Hue massacres of 1968?
Nature versus nurture suggests that some of our behaviour is explained by biological mechanisms and some by social conditioning, or in a slightly more sophisticated version that we can give a percentage for each contribution, so some behaviour might be 70% nurture and 30% nature.
This is not a sensible way to think of it, trying to determine the percentage involved in, say, your response to a painting is fatuous. Compare the attempt to apportion the percentage contribution of hardware versus software to the output of a computer program. The whole attempt to make such a determination is misconceived.
Didn’t you have a gun in Vietnam? What were you doing there, handing out lollies and flowers ?
Perpetrators?
Calley was the only one convicted.
His penalty for the slaughter of more than 500 people was three-and-a-half years under house arrest.
He is 74 and lives in Atlanta.
Numbers loses the argument.
Godwin’s Law sonny.
And it ain’t the Right which is saying 75 million Americans should be sent to re-education camps.
Software gets developed to overcome faulty or limited hardware. Never the other way around. When new hardware is developed the proses is starts again.
So your analogy isn’t straightforward, DrBG.
A lot of neurological disorders can be managed (nurture/software).
The discussion about nature vs nurture should always revolve around the individual nature of the person and there influences not about blanket assumptions of percentages.
To understand Calley and the My Lai situation is quite difficult. I will post some analysis.
shatterzzz,
What a cute bunch. Spotted the identical twins in there.
Having no evidence is a tiny problem.
Lol
‘prosecute the perpetrators.’
Seppo bullshit. What would Alan Alda say?
Unbelievable.
The midget cheating ranga walked. He was out by two feet, but still.
Policies? Analysis by the media of appointments ? No, the media report about Biden’s pets
Yes, perhaps I should have left the “s” off “perpetrator”. The time it took to get to trial was the crux of my comment. Politicians and others here are talking 10 years.
The Calley massacre
Lieutenant William Calley, the US Army 2nd Lieutenant officer who was held responsible for the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, put his experience into his own words after his trial. The account is significant.
Calley’s troops were sniped at from Vietnamese villages, but they hardly made any contact with the enemy. They searched hamlets; found friendly villagers, but then found Vietcong flags. Calley was constantly asked what his unit’s body count was. They took reprisals for being sniped at, burning villages down. He interrogated civilians for the locations of the VC, and got nowhere.
Calley took a VC prisoner; sent him to the military police, who got nothing out of him, and Calley took the same prisoner again three weeks later. On querying this with the MPs he was told: “…So why didn’t you go and shoot him? I can’t,” the MP said. “I’m at headquarters with the Geneva people on me.” The MP complained about having to house and feed prisoners, and accept their word that they were not VC. He finished up by advising Calley to shoot his prisoners if he didn’t want to see them released.
This frustration was commented upon by Second Lieutenant Robert Ransom Jr, an infantry platoon commander in Vietnam. He noted that:
…more than once we have captured or killed people with weapons whom we recognized as one of those smiling faces we had picked up and released earlier. It’s maddening because we know damn well that they’re dinks but we can’t do anything to them until we catch them with a weapon or actually shooting at us.
Despite these sort of difficult situations for himself and his men, Calley did not execute “suspected VC” or civilians in the field. He says however, that: “Everyone said eliminate them. I never met someone who didn’t say it”. Then his troops lost a squad leader to a booby trap set in a village; killed an injured Vietnamese woman in reprisal, and then planned their response. According to the court-martial record, Captain Medina told the preliminary briefing that the women and children would be out of the hamlet and all they could expect to encounter would be the opposition. The soldiers were to explode brick homes, set fire to thatch homes, shoot livestock, poison wells, and destroy the enemy. The soldiers, approximately 75 in number, would be supported in their assault by gunship pilots.
Medina later said he did not give any instructions as to what to do with women and children in the village. Some soldiers agreed with that recollection, others thought that he had ordered them to kill every person in the village. It does seem that Medina intentionally gave the impression that everyone in My Lai would be their enemy. As we have seen, women, children, and old people in Vietnam sometimes could be.
On 16 March, 1968, when landing from helicopters, the troops took ground fire. They began killing civilians; at first one by one in different ways, and in different areas; then more, and then many together in a ravine. Several soldiers testified they killed the civilians: in one case the witness said he regarded them as Viet Cong, and added during testimony, that he still did. Calley was in tactical command on the spot, and it seems he took part in the shooting of around 500 civilians, executed by single shots; and bursts of automatic gunfire. By lunchtime, there was no-one left alive.
With the operation over, Calley and his men returned to normal operations. In Calley’s account, there was developing a casual attitude towards death, and the general feeling was to
…kill every man, woman and child in South Vietnam. GIs said to use napalm, or low-yield atomic bombs…or to line up along the China sea and say, “Prepare to shake hands with your ancestors. We are rolling through….a GI became a quick philosopher and would say, “God, if I go and kill everyone here, I could leave”.
Some while later, after two of the men present had complained of the actions, Calley was transported back to the United States and tried. He was found guilty, and served a period – under three years – in an Army prison, and was then released. He is still alive, and works in his father’s jewelry business.
During the trial, and after it, he received considerable support from around America, which included letters from numerous veterans. This was for a variety of reasons, perhaps partly because in Richard Holmes’ words, with the advent of television beaming the conflict into lounger-rooms “War has become moving wallpaper, and its familiar pattern no longer horrifies us” , but also because, in summing up many arguments, such procedures were acknowledged as being the norm. In His Own Story, Calley recounted that he had received around “5000” letters during the period of his trial. He listed some of the statements in which some recounted events similar to the massacre:
I served in Korea from June 1953 to August 1954. I heard of many similar incidents.
I’m a retired marine. I spent twenty years in the service of God and Country. I was in two operations in Korea where women and children were killed.
In 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1946 I was a first lieutenant with 45th Infantry Division. I was witness to many incidents similar to the one you’re being held for.
I served in combat in the German war. My fellow soldiers and I did on occasion kill enemy soldiers, civilians and children. Marquess of Queensbury rules do not prevail in war.
During my duty in Africa we were under orders to shoot the Arabs to keep them from taking our clothes.
I was given the order to seal a cave where a mother and her eleven or twelve children were holed up. This took place in 1944 on the island of Ie Shima.
On Okinawa, I saw men throw grenades on old men and women, figuring what the hell – they’re the enemy…
Many years ago I had a platoon, and we went through the villages as you and your people had to.
Calley recounted that he was amazed that he had been charged when it was common practice to target civilians:
I couldn’t understand it. An investigation of Mylai. Why not Operation Golden Fleece? Or Operation Norfolk? Or Operation Dragon Valley? Or why not Saigon itself? We had killed hundreds of men, women and children there in February and March, 1968: in Tet…simply read it in Stars and Stripes. Or the New York Times.
His allegation that such massacres were carried out is supported by others. Cherokee Paul McDonald said of his Vietnam experience: “Both sides had their My Lais – ours were rare and highly publicized, theirs were continuous throughout the war and after and largely dismissed, ignored, defended, or rationalised by brave intellectuals.”
David Hackworth, who commanded Tiger Force, although not in the period covered by The Toledo Blade, supported this scenario:
“Vietnam was an atrocity from the get-go,” Hackworth said in a recent telephone interview. “It was that kind of war, a frontless war of great frustration. It was out of hand very early. There were hundreds of My Lais. You got your card punched by the numbers of bodies you counted.
The US Army today refers to these incidents as “misconduct stress behaviour” and notes without ironical inflexion that: “…overstressed human beings with loaded weapons are inherently dangerous”. Its Handbook gives examples of such frustration in the field and also orders:
Commission of murder and other atrocities against noncombatants must be reported as a war crime and punished if responsibility is established. This must be done even though we may pity the overstressed soldier as well as the victims.
A central point of this work though is that if infantry are placed in a situation where civilians may be identified as combatants, then those soldiers will doubtless make mistakes and kill civilians who are not combatants. The politicians – and behind them the people – who make the decisions to send warriors into such situations need to accept their part of this responsibility. The worst consequences of these situations may be seen as we proceed.
and from the end of that chapter:
This is the nature of war, and trying to educate troops that it is not so, or it is not to be done, is pointless. In modern times, senior commanders will try and get things done the political way if they are so directed. If the politicians tell them to observe the rules of engagement and ensure their troopers cannot kill at will, then they will post soldiers on guard with unloaded weapons:
Even though the members of the security detail on the Cole were at their posts on high alert – in an extremely dangerous port where they’d already been warned that a terrorist attack was highly probable – not one of their weapons had a round in the chamber….The Rules of Engagement had stated that our weapons were to have no rounds in the chamber.
When rank rules, people say “Yes Sir” when they should say “no fucking way”. I wanted to instil a particular sort of insubordination, but don’t get me wrong – when I told the men to do something, I wanted it done. But I also wanted an atmosphere where no one would be afraid to sound off and speak the truth.
The consequences of this are manifold. First, the cost to the soldier is often their life. That may be self-evident, but it is notable in many cases they are easily manipulated and coerced. Second, what of the cost to the morale of the troops forced into firing at targets which most people would identify – until they knew the reality – as non combatants. Third, what of the psychological effect on the troops.
If infantry are placed in a situation where civilians may be identified as combatants, then those soldiers will doubtless make mistakes and kill civilians who are not combatants.
If these soldiers are classically trained infantry it is difficult for them not to react the way they have trained: by pouring massive firepower into their target.
If soldiers are placed in situations where they get shot at constantly and cannot effectively return fire, they will become frustrated, and as their friends are wounded and killed, they will naturally seek vengeance. These are soldiers, not automatons.
It is easy and convenient to blame the soldier on the front line. However, in his situation, where his life is given to him by his reaction time, his situation is difficult, and unique. It is important to remember that much training of infantry and of armed forces in general accepts their use is to deliver maximum force, not, as police do, minimum force. If less than the maximum is wanted, then soldiers must be equipped with training and equipment to deliver that.
The politicians, and behind them the people of a country, who make the decisions to send warriors into such situations need to accept their part of this responsibility. My Lai was inevitable, and it was not alone.
Source: Lethality in Combat
It will not be forgotten by the families of 39 Afghans.
Ever…
The old bastard troll is a traitor; believing RoP goat fuckers over Australians and before it’s been tested in court. In a just world the old treasonous bastard would catch the chunk virus and die.
All the facts you need to know about GOODBYE GOOGLE
Just write “Alan the Alda”. He won’t notice the interrupted alliteration.
It depends if Alanaldabot was on either the “Maudlin” or “Irreverent” setting.
Drawing the process out will simply destroy more people.
If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly:
(Macbeth: Act 1: Scene 7.)
A Full-Auto Beltfed .22LR demonstrated by a gun nut; with big foot strolling in the back ground:
https://www.facebook.com/TopShotDustin/videos/387432135912364
The whistleblowers were Australians – members of the units involved.
The RoP goat fuckers (as you call them) were the people Australians were deployed to protect.
What were you deployed to do to the people of Vietnam, Bob ?
The Calley massacre
Lieutenant William Calley, the US Army 2nd Lieutenant officer who was held responsible for the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, put his experience into his own words after his trial. The account is significant.
Calley’s troops were sniped at from Vietnamese villages, but they hardly made any contact with the enemy. They searched hamlets; found friendly villagers, but then found Vietcong flags. Calley was constantly asked what his unit’s body count was. They took reprisals for being sniped at, burning villages down. He interrogated civilians for the locations of the VC, and got nowhere.
Calley took a VC prisoner; sent him to the military police, who got nothing out of him, and Calley took the same prisoner again three weeks later. On querying this with the MPs he was told: “…So why didn’t you go and shoot him? I can’t,” the MP said. “I’m at headquarters with the Geneva people on me.” The MP complained about having to house and feed prisoners, and accept their word that they were not VC. He finished up by advising Calley to shoot his prisoners if he didn’t want to see them released.
This frustration was commented upon by Second Lieutenant Robert Ransom Jr, an infantry platoon commander in Vietnam. He noted that:
…more than once we have captured or killed people with weapons whom we recognized as one of those smiling faces we had picked up and released earlier. It’s maddening because we know damn well that they’re dinks but we can’t do anything to them until we catch them with a weapon or actually shooting at us.
Despite these sort of difficult situations for himself and his men, Calley did not execute “suspected VC” or civilians in the field. He says however, that: “Everyone said eliminate them. I never met someone who didn’t say it”. Then his troops lost a squad leader to a booby trap set in a village; killed an injured Vietnamese woman in reprisal, and then planned their response. According to the court-martial record, Captain Medina told the preliminary briefing that the women and children would be out of the hamlet and all they could expect to encounter would be the opposition. The soldiers were to explode brick homes, set fire to thatch homes, shoot livestock, poison wells, and destroy the enemy. The soldiers, approximately 75 in number, would be supported in their assault by gunship pilots.
Medina later said he did not give any instructions as to what to do with women and children in the village. Some soldiers agreed with that recollection, others thought that he had ordered them to kill every person in the village. It does seem that Medina intentionally gave the impression that everyone in My Lai would be their enemy. As we have seen, women, children, and old people in Vietnam sometimes could be.
On 16 March, 1968, when landing from helicopters, the troops took ground fire. They began killing civilians; at first one by one in different ways, and in different areas; then more, and then many together in a ravine. Several soldiers testified they killed the civilians: in one case the witness said he regarded them as Viet Cong, and added during testimony, that he still did. Calley was in tactical command on the spot, and it seems he took part in the shooting of around 500 civilians, executed by single shots; and bursts of automatic gunfire. By lunchtime, there was no-one left alive.
With the operation over, Calley and his men returned to normal operations. In Calley’s account, there was developing a casual attitude towards death, and the general feeling was to
…kill every man, woman and child in South Vietnam. GIs said to use napalm, or low-yield atomic bombs…or to line up along the China sea and say, “Prepare to shake hands with your ancestors. We are rolling through….a GI became a quick philosopher and would say, “God, if I go and kill everyone here, I could leave”.
Some while later, after two of the men present had complained of the actions, Calley was transported back to the United States and tried. He was found guilty, and served a period – under three years – in an Army prison, and was then released. He is still alive, and works in his father’s jew elry business.
During the trial, and after it, he received considerable support from around America, which included letters from numerous veterans. This was for a variety of reasons, perhaps partly because in Richard Holmes’ words, with the advent of television beaming the conflict into lounger-rooms “War has become moving wallpaper, and its familiar pattern no longer horrifies us” , but also because, in summing up many arguments, such procedures were acknowledged as being the norm. In His Own Story, Calley recounted that he had received around “5000” letters during the period of his trial. He listed some of the statements in which some recounted events similar to the massacre:
I served in Korea from June 1953 to August 1954. I heard of many similar incidents.
I’m a retired marine. I spent twenty years in the service of God and Country. I was in two operations in Korea where women and children were killed.
In 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1946 I was a first lieutenant with 45th Infantry Division. I was witness to many incidents similar to the one you’re being held for.
I served in combat in the German war. My fellow soldiers and I did on occasion kill enemy soldiers, civilians and children. Marquess of Queensbury rules do not prevail in war.
During my duty in Africa we were under orders to shoot the Arabs to keep them from taking our clothes.
I was given the order to seal a cave where a mother and her eleven or twelve children were holed up. This took place in 1944 on the island of Ie Shima.
On Okinawa, I saw men throw grenades on old men and women, figuring what the hell – they’re the enemy…
Many years ago I had a platoon, and we went through the villages as you and your people had to.
Calley recounted that he was amazed that he had been charged when it was common practice to target civilians:
I couldn’t understand it. An investigation of Mylai. Why not Operation Golden Fleece? Or Operation Norfolk? Or Operation Dragon Valley? Or why not Saigon itself? We had killed hundreds of men, women and children there in February and March, 1968: in Tet…simply read it in Stars and Stripes. Or the New York Times.
His allegation that such massacres were carried out is supported by others. Cherokee Paul McDonald said of his Vietnam experience: “Both sides had their My Lais – ours were rare and highly publicized, theirs were continuous throughout the war and after and largely dismissed, ignored, defended, or rationalised by brave intellectuals.”
David Hackworth, who commanded Tiger Force, although not in the period covered by The Toledo Blade, supported this scenario:
“Vietnam was an atrocity from the get-go,” Hackworth said in a recent telephone interview. “It was that kind of war, a frontless war of great frustration. It was out of hand very early. There were hundreds of My Lais. You got your card punched by the numbers of bodies you counted.
The US Army today refers to these incidents as “misconduct stress behaviour” and notes without ironical inflexion that: “…overstressed human beings with loaded weapons are inherently dangerous”. Its Handbook gives examples of such frustration in the field and also orders:
Commission of murder and other atrocities against noncombatants must be reported as a war crime and punished if responsibility is established. This must be done even though we may pity the overstressed soldier as well as the victims.
A central point of this work though is that if infantry are placed in a situation where civilians may be identified as combatants, then those soldiers will doubtless make mistakes and kill civilians who are not combatants. The politicians – and behind them the people – who make the decisions to send warriors into such situations need to accept their part of this responsibility. The worst consequences of these situations may be seen as we proceed.
and from the end of that chapter:
This is the nature of war, and trying to educate troops that it is not so, or it is not to be done, is pointless. In modern times, senior commanders will try and get things done the political way if they are so directed. If the politicians tell them to observe the rules of engagement and ensure their troopers cannot kill at will, then they will post soldiers on guard with unloaded weapons:
Even though the members of the security detail on the Cole were at their posts on high alert – in an extremely dangerous port where they’d already been warned that a terrorist attack was highly probable – not one of their weapons had a round in the chamber….The Rules of Engagement had stated that our weapons were to have no rounds in the chamber.
When rank rules, people say “Yes Sir” when they should say “no fucking way”. I wanted to instil a particular sort of insubordination, but don’t get me wrong – when I told the men to do something, I wanted it done. But I also wanted an atmosphere where no one would be afraid to sound off and speak the truth.
The consequences of this are manifold. First, the cost to the soldier is often their life. That may be self-evident, but it is notable in many cases they are easily manipulated and coerced. Second, what of the cost to the morale of the troops forced into firing at targets which most people would identify – until they knew the reality – as non combatants. Third, what of the psychological effect on the troops.
If infantry are placed in a situation where civilians may be identified as combatants, then those soldiers will doubtless make mistakes and kill civilians who are not combatants.
If these soldiers are classically trained infantry it is difficult for them not to react the way they have trained: by pouring massive firepower into their target.
If soldiers are placed in situations where they get shot at constantly and cannot effectively return fire, they will become frustrated, and as their friends are wounded and killed, they will naturally seek vengeance. These are soldiers, not automatons.
It is easy and convenient to blame the soldier on the front line. However, in his situation, where his life is given to him by his reaction time, his situation is difficult, and unique. It is important to remember that much training of infantry and of armed forces in general accepts their use is to deliver maximum force, not, as police do, minimum force. If less than the maximum is wanted, then soldiers must be equipped with training and equipment to deliver that.
The politicians, and behind them the people of a country, who make the decisions to send warriors into such situations need to accept their part of this responsibility. My Lai was inevitable, and it was not alone.
Source: Lethality in Combat
If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly:
(Macbeth: Act 1: Scene 7.)
What an ignorant, pretentious old bastard you are; you foul up the place with your gutless treason and then you misquote Shakespeare; Macbeth is planning a cowardly, treasonous act and decides on haste. On reflection it probably is appropriate since other old bastards in the upper echelons of the military are planning to betray their troops and want it done quickly to cover their own bony arses. In any event you’re a shit stain of a human.
Eyewitnesses to murders.
Not a single arrest or indictment.
2 – 5 more years of investigations.
Does this pass the pub test? Does it pass the credulity test for anyone who is legally trained?
‘If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly:
(Macbeth: Act 1: Scene 7.)’
Perfectly quoted. It’s about treason.
You’d could ask Bob Menzies, but he’s dead.
I think it was to keep the debil debil Commies out.
You know, to tell them who they should support and how they should run their own country.
He face planted on that one…
Snap, cohenite.
Anikin Skywalker was the Law and Order candidate.
He just wanted a fair trial and presumption of innocence for the Chancellor.
Trump turns up to the CIA after the electoral college Meetup:
Spooky kid: Master Trumpykins…
Trumpykins: …primes lightsaber.
‘What were you deployed to do to the people of Vietnam, Bob ?’
Making the most of his white privilege, he had an old noggie woman on hand at all times to wipe his face for him, whereupon they would both silently ruminate on the broader issues surrounding the conflict he briefly attended to obtain later benefits – but in which he scarpered at the first opportunity leaving his ‘mates’ to do all the work.
Then made sure he wouldn’t be sent back by putting a round through someone else’s tent.
Stunning and brave.
Anakin was bullied as a callow youth.
The rest of his life was just lashing out. Someone else’s fault.
The RoP goat fuckers (as you call them) were the people Australians were deployed to protect.
You walk around in a self generated pile of shit; as if that was the mission statement. Australia went to pig fucker country as a response to 9.11 and to head off the taliban mongrel dogs. Weasel words about introducing democracy to this hell hole and protect the locals were for domestic and UN consumption. Now the ADF heads are going to these same goat fuckers, requesting evidence (as they did with Pell) to prosecute their own soldiers; and apologising and offering money. The goat fuckers will be lining up.
Seriously, FOAD.
The Calley massacre
Lieutenant William Calley, the US Army 2nd Lieutenant officer who was held responsible for the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, put his experience into his own words after his trial. The account is significant.
Calley’s troops were sniped at from Vietnamese villages, but they hardly made any contact with the enemy. They searched hamlets; found friendly villagers, but then found Vietcong flags. Calley was constantly asked what his unit’s body count was. They took reprisals for being sniped at, burning villages down. He interrogated civilians for the locations of the VC, and got nowhere.
Calley took a VC prisoner; sent him to the military police, who got nothing out of him, and Calley took the same prisoner again three weeks later. On querying this with the MPs he was told: “…So why didn’t you go and shoot him? I can’t,” the MP said. “I’m at headquarters with the Geneva people on me.” The MP complained about having to house and feed prisoners, and accept their word that they were not VC. He finished up by advising Calley to shoot his prisoners if he didn’t want to see them released.
This frustration was commented upon by Second Lieutenant Robert Ransom Jr, an infantry platoon commander in Vietnam. He noted that:
…more than once we have captured or killed people with weapons whom we recognized as one of those smiling faces we had picked up and released earlier. It’s maddening because we know damn well that they’re dinks but we can’t do anything to them until we catch them with a weapon or actually shooting at us.
Despite these sort of difficult situations for himself and his men, Calley did not execute “suspected VC” or civilians in the field. He says however, that: “Everyone said eliminate them. I never met someone who didn’t say it”. Then his troops lost a squad leader to a booby trap set in a village; killed an injured Vietnamese woman in reprisal, and then planned their response. According to the court-martial record, Captain Medina told the preliminary briefing that the women and children would be out of the hamlet and all they could expect to encounter would be the opposition. The soldiers were to explode brick homes, set fire to thatch homes, shoot livestock, poison wells, and destroy the enemy. The soldiers, approximately 75 in number, would be supported in their assault by gunship pilots.
Medina later said he did not give any instructions as to what to do with women and children in the village. Some soldiers agreed with that recollection, others thought that he had ordered them to kill every person in the village. It does seem that Medina intentionally gave the impression that everyone in My Lai would be their enemy. As we have seen, women, children, and old people in Vietnam sometimes could be.
On 16 March, 1968, when landing from helicopters, the troops took ground fire. They began killing civilians; at first one by one in different ways, and in different areas; then more, and then many together in a ravine. Several soldiers testified they killed the civilians: in one case the witness said he regarded them as Viet Cong, and added during testimony, that he still did. Calley was in tactical command on the spot, and it seems he took part in the shooting of around 500 civilians, executed by single shots; and bursts of automatic gunfire. By lunchtime, there was no-one left alive.
With the operation over, Calley and his men returned to normal operations. In Calley’s account, there was developing a casual attitude towards death, and the general feeling was to
…kill every man, woman and child in South Vietnam. GIs said to use napalm, or low-yield atomic bombs…or to line up along the China sea and say, “Prepare to shake hands with your ancestors. We are rolling through….a GI became a quick philosopher and would say, “God, if I go and kill everyone here, I could leave”.
Some while later, after two of the men present had complained of the actions, Calley was transported back to the United States and tried. He was found guilty, and served a period – under three years – in an Army prison, and was then released. He is still alive, and works in his father’s jew elry business.
..
Serious?
You had the ability to monitor the fuckers, but never saw a goddamn thing?
I suspect you really, really didn’t want to see.
“We see what we see but only when we wanna see it”
The Calley massacre
Lieutenant William Calley, the US Army 2nd Lieutenant officer who was held responsible for the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, put his experience into his own words after his trial. The account is significant.
Calley’s troops were sniped at from Vietnamese villages, but they hardly made any contact with the enemy. They searched hamlets; found friendly villagers, but then found Vietcong flags. Calley was constantly asked what his unit’s body count was. They took reprisals for being sniped at, burning villages down. He interrogated civilians for the locations of the VC, and got nowhere.
Calley took a VC prisoner; sent him to the military police, who got nothing out of him, and Calley took the same prisoner again three weeks later. On querying this with the MPs he was told: “…So why didn’t you go and shoot him? I can’t,” the MP said. “I’m at headquarters with the Geneva people on me.” The MP complained about having to house and feed prisoners, and accept their word that they were not VC. He finished up by advising Calley to shoot his prisoners if he didn’t want to see them released.
This frustration was commented upon by Second Lieutenant Robert Ransom Jr, an infantry platoon commander in Vietnam. He noted that:
…more than once we have captured or killed people with weapons whom we recognized as one of those smiling faces we had picked up and released earlier. It’s maddening because we know damn well that they’re dinks but we can’t do anything to them until we catch them with a weapon or actually shooting at us.
Despite these sort of difficult situations for himself and his men, Calley did not execute “suspected VC” or civilians in the field. He says however, that: “Everyone said eliminate them. I never met someone who didn’t say it”. Then his troops lost a squad leader to a booby trap set in a village; killed an injured Vietnamese woman in reprisal, and then planned their response. According to the court-martial record, Captain Medina told the preliminary briefing that the women and children would be out of the hamlet and all they could expect to encounter would be the opposition. The soldiers were to explode brick homes, set fire to thatch homes, shoot livestock, poison wells, and destroy the enemy. The soldiers, approximately 75 in number, would be supported in their assault by gunship pilots.
Medina later said he did not give any instructions as to what to do with women and children in the village. Some soldiers agreed with that recollection, others thought that he had ordered them to kill every person in the village. It does seem that Medina intentionally gave the impression that everyone in My Lai would be their enemy. As we have seen, women, children, and old people in Vietnam sometimes could be.
On 16 March, 1968, when landing from helicopters, the troops took ground fire. They began killing civilians; at first one by one in different ways, and in different areas; then more, and then many together in a ravine. Several soldiers testified they killed the civilians: in one case the witness said he regarded them as Viet Cong, and added during testimony, that he still did. Calley was in tactical command on the spot, and it seems he took part in the shooting of around 500 civilians, executed by single shots; and bursts of automatic gunfire. By lunchtime, there was no-one left alive.
With the operation over, Calley and his men returned to normal operations. In Calley’s account, there was developing a casual attitude towards death, and the general feeling was to
…kill every man, woman and child in South Vietnam. GIs said to use napalm, or low-yield atomic bombs…or to line up along the China sea and say, “Prepare to shake hands with your ancestors. We are rolling through….a GI became a quick philosopher and would say, “God, if I go and kill everyone here, I could leave”.
Some while later, after two of the men present had complained of the actions, Calley was transported back to the United States and tried. He was found guilty, and served a period – under three years – in an Army prison, and was then released. He is still alive, and works in his father’s j e w elry business.
During the trial, and after it, he received considerable support from around America, which included letters from numerous veterans. This was for a variety of reasons, perhaps partly because in Richard Holmes’ words, with the advent of television beaming the conflict into lounger-rooms “War has become moving wallpaper, and its familiar pattern no longer horrifies us” , but also because, in summing up many arguments, such procedures were acknowledged as being the norm. In His Own Story, Calley recounted that he had received around “5000” letters during the period of his trial. He listed some of the statements in which some recounted events similar to the massacre:
I served in Korea from June 1953 to August 1954. I heard of many similar incidents.
I’m a retired marine. I spent twenty years in the service of God and Country. I was in two operations in Korea where women and children were killed.
In 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1946 I was a first lieutenant with 45th Infantry Division. I was witness to many incidents similar to the one you’re being held for.
I served in combat in the German war. My fellow soldiers and I did on occasion kill enemy soldiers, civilians and children. Marquess of Queensbury rules do not prevail in war.
During my duty in Africa we were under orders to shoot the Arabs to keep them from taking our clothes.
I was given the order to seal a cave where a mother and her eleven or twelve children were holed up. This took place in 1944 on the island of Ie Shima.
On Okinawa, I saw men throw grenades on old men and women, figuring what the hell – they’re the enemy…
Many years ago I had a platoon, and we went through the villages as you and your people had to.
Calley recounted that he was amazed that he had been charged when it was common practice to target civilians:
I couldn’t understand it. An investigation of Mylai. Why not Operation Golden Fleece? Or Operation Norfolk? Or Operation Dragon Valley? Or why not Saigon itself? We had killed hundreds of men, women and children there in February and March, 1968: in Tet…simply read it in Stars and Stripes. Or the New York Times.
His allegation that such massacres were carried out is supported by others. Cherokee Paul McDonald said of his Vietnam experience: “Both sides had their My Lais – ours were rare and highly publicized, theirs were continuous throughout the war and after and largely dismissed, ignored, defended, or rationalised by brave intellectuals.”
David Hackworth, who commanded Tiger Force, although not in the period covered by The Toledo Blade, supported this scenario:
“Vietnam was an atrocity from the get-go,” Hackworth said in a recent telephone interview. “It was that kind of war, a frontless war of great frustration. It was out of hand very early. There were hundreds of My Lais. You got your card punched by the numbers of bodies you counted.
The US Army today refers to these incidents as “misconduct stress behaviour” and notes without ironical inflexion that: “…overstressed human beings with loaded weapons are inherently dangerous”. Its Handbook gives examples of such frustration in the field and also orders:
Commission of murder and other atrocities against noncombatants must be reported as a war crime and punished if responsibility is established. This must be done even though we may pity the overstressed soldier as well as the victims.
A central point of this work though is that if infantry are placed in a situation where civilians may be identified as combatants, then those soldiers will doubtless make mistakes and kill civilians who are not combatants. The politicians – and behind them the people – who make the decisions to send warriors into such situations need to accept their part of this responsibility. The worst consequences of these situations may be seen as we proceed.
and from the end of that chapter:
This is the nature of war, and trying to educate troops that it is not so, or it is not to be done, is pointless. In modern times, senior commanders will try and get things done the political way if they are so directed. If the politicians tell them to observe the rules of engagement and ensure their troopers cannot kill at will, then they will post soldiers on guard with unloaded weapons:
Even though the members of the security detail on the Cole were at their posts on high alert – in an extremely dangerous port where they’d already been warned that a terrorist attack was highly probable – not one of their weapons had a round in the chamber….The Rules of Engagement had stated that our weapons were to have no rounds in the chamber.
When rank rules, people say “Yes Sir” when they should say “no fucking way”. I wanted to instil a particular sort of insubordination, but don’t get me wrong – when I told the men to do something, I wanted it done. But I also wanted an atmosphere where no one would be afraid to sound off and speak the truth.
The consequences of this are manifold. First, the cost to the soldier is often their life. That may be self-evident, but it is notable in many cases they are easily manipulated and coerced. Second, what of the cost to the morale of the troops forced into firing at targets which most people would identify – until they knew the reality – as non combatants. Third, what of the psychological effect on the troops.
If infantry are placed in a situation where civilians may be identified as combatants, then those soldiers will doubtless make mistakes and kill civilians who are not combatants.
If these soldiers are classically trained infantry it is difficult for them not to react the way they have trained: by pouring massive firepower into their target.
If soldiers are placed in situations where they get shot at constantly and cannot effectively return fire, they will become frustrated, and as their friends are wounded and killed, they will naturally seek vengeance. These are soldiers, not automatons.
It is easy and convenient to blame the soldier on the front line. However, in his situation, where his life is given to him by his reaction time, his situation is difficult, and unique. It is important to remember that much training of infantry and of armed forces in general accepts their use is to deliver maximum force, not, as police do, minimum force. If less than the maximum is wanted, then soldiers must be equipped with training and equipment to deliver that.
The politicians, and behind them the people of a country, who make the decisions to send warriors into such situations need to accept their part of this responsibility. My Lai was inevitable, and it was not alone.
Source: Lethality in Combat
I think I’ve got the passage from Liability Bob’s Book of Malleable Political Points here somewhere. Ah, yes:
‘Shortly after identifying the B52s bombing another country 150 miles away, I had a bit of a rest on my own. After all, it sat well with my major goal of getting home in one piece.
‘I awoke with nervous sweat coursing over me. I was, by any proper analysis, moist.
‘Suddenly an old Vietnamese woman, fresh from the paddy appeared, waiflike in the mist. She looked up at me silently, then produced a cloth I later discovered was a family heirloom. She said nothing, but wiped my face clean of my sweat. And my shame.
‘I asked her, looking at her weather-wizened visage: “You must have been in the sun for a very long time.”
‘She said, “I’m not a flamin’ pot plant.”‘
Bluddee hell – there’s nothing like existing in an oven … 🤬
Dot makes the killer point that’s being ignored by the likes of Andrew Bolt.
Why aren’t all these SAS “murderers” already under arrest – indeed, remanded in custody as canny, dangerous flight risks?
“Both sides had their My Lais – ours were rare and highly publicized, theirs were continuous throughout the war and after and largely dismissed, ignored, defended, or rationalised by brave intellectuals.”
Yup.
Top Ender
#3674943, posted on November 29, 2020 at 5:13 pm
A very good account. Things like the troll, indeed, all the left, if they aren’t actively supporting the enemy, and many do, are supporting values which are so impractical, so self indulgent, that they are lethal to their armies and police, the very people who defend the system in which the left can peddle their self-indulgent clap-trap. The left are massive hypocrites and this persecution of army troops exemplifies that.
Bluddee hell – there’s nothing like existing in an oven … 🤬
Same here in Hunter Valley and an annoying roaring gale. Dry change expected tonight sometime…
Hue?
So, if I have this right:
For at least some of the alleged incidents there were UAVs used.
Investigators look at the footage.
Watching the target as the patrol approaches.
Then, cuts to looking off into the blue yonder.
They ask why this is and there must be a bunch of procedures whereby the operator doesn’t watch the operation, but some points off in the distance in case some randos rock up out of nowhere.
Fuck off.
Why aren’t all these SAS “murderers” already under arrest – indeed, remanded in custody as canny, dangerous flight risks?
And the best they’ve done is effectively throw out 13 operators who have been identified as ‘undesirable’ characters, based on alleged peripheral involvement.
The whole debacle stinks harder, the more ‘administrative actioms’ are carried out in lieu of actual justice…
This.
Excellent comment from an excellent book TE.
Smith, 100 from 62 deliveries.
Great innings, the fucking cheat.
They ask why this is and there must be a bunch of procedures whereby the operator doesn’t watch the operation, but some points off in the distance in case some randos rock up out of nowhere.
I call bollocks, Arky.
Nobody miraculously retasks a point surveillance tool at the instant your people conduct he hard knock. Unless it is about to fall out of the sky due to lack of fuel, or someoneis so deeply in the sht their death is imminent without the help.
How the hell else do you note and track the squirters for your people to chase down?
You have sniper and backup patrols providing persistent overwatch on all likely avenues of approach and escape. Standard procedure.
But the flying ISR (UAV, Spectre or helo) gives you the instant commentary for the commanders on the ground, and allows the control and siuational awareness you might otherwise lack.
Someone best get onto the Corps RSM for the Royal Australian Artillery- The Head Sheds have stolen all his units’ stores of whitewash, and are frantically dousimg themselves in it…
I don’t have the required experience to know if it makes sense or not, but to me it’s strange.
no doubt he rang numpty first for advice
I don’t have the required experience to know if it makes sense or not, but to me it’s strange.
Even the dimmest dig picks up enough through osmosis to learn about basic military planning, the utility and employment of assets and resources, and how to appreciate a situation.
That is why it feels strange. And I think your feeling is quite correct.
I add in my wider readings on the subject, plus videos I have seen plus convos and other interactions with Afghan and Iraq vets, etc.
It all paints a mightily weird picture against the claims Brereton et al have made. Which is why I called bullshit two weeks ago when the first threads appeared.
This is is most heavily micromanaged and legalistic war yet conducted in Western military history. To say that there were breakdowns in oversight and surveillance onsite in order to localise and limit culpability to mere Patrol Commanders screams of dodgy conduct amd blame shifing.
Offering three or four bullshit excuses isn’t better than one bullshit excuse.
It looks like you are looking for bullshit excuses.
The issue with Sapolsky saying Nature vs Nurture is an outdated idea and human behaviour
is ‘complicated’, is that, apart from the Social Sciences, the argument is over.
Separated Twin studies proved that, Nurture can’t trump Nature, and you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
The apple also doesn’t fall far from the tree, being born in a stable doesn’t make you a horse, and if The Queen had balls, she”d be The King.
A lefty Professor in California isn’t going to challenge the PC doctrines that have made the Universities and the Government Sector into gold mines, but he doesn’t get a pass to reanimate the corpse either.
4/398.
By jiminy crikey.
Op sec is the worst excuse.
You don’t want your UAV pilot watching infantry tactics?
As if SAS have some special Karma Sutra moves that they can’t let on.
Like a swirl with their palm, and George Kostanza’s going to screw it up if he uses it.
Seriously, fuck off.
More from Mark McStalin of WA
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-29/peel-health-campus-to-get-$152-million-upgrade/12932368
I take it that the ABC approves.
‘The issue with Sapolsky saying Nature vs Nurture’
If Trading Places has taught us anything, it’s that nurture beats nature, and also that strippers have hearts of gold, fantastic cans and will put out for a sob story.
Oops.
4/389. Terrible by comparison.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4BNIhuhoiq4
Drivel, full of soaring generalisations and trite aphorisms. Give yourself an uppercut.
Obviously you’ve never looked closely at separated twin studies and ignored the obvious fact that even for psychiatric conditions with a strong genetic component the rate is nowhere near 100%, closer to 50\50. There are plenty of critiques on twin studies that raise lots of interesting questions, not the least being that adoption agencies have very strict criteria for adoptees hence the twins are typically moving into remarkably similiar environments. Of course genes are important but it is also true that Nature cannot trump Nurture, just look at the famous Winter Famine and Romanian orphanage studies.
The argument is over? What, you’ve decided the truth already have you? You’re qualified to make that judgement. Go and look at some GWAS studies, single gene effects often come in at less than 1%. On the other hand don’t bother, GWAS studies are ridiculous.
The evidence continues to pile up that Numbers is only here to degrade the site, which he is succeeding in doing.
He’s not the only one, but should be first in line to walk the plank.
Breastfeeding charity sparks outrage by allowing men who identify as female to attend meetings for mothers struggling to feed their babies
-La Leche League offer breastfeeding support to transgender women born male
-Charity runs 80 local groups across Britain, said extending help to be inclusive
-Chestfeeding term used to avoid offence to women who’ve transitioned to men
from their home page
We are committed to serving everyone – mothers, parents, families – in a way that is inclusive of all races, ethnicities, religions, sexes, national origins, ancestries, ages, marital statuses, physical or mental abilities, socio-economic statuses, political views, gender identities, sexual orientations, family structures, cultural values and beliefs.
Dave Prowse, star of A Clockwork Orange and Star Wars, has died aged 85.
We are committed to serving everyone – mothers, parents, families – in a way that is inclusive of all races, ethnicities, religions, sexes, national origins, ancestries, ages, marital statuses, physical or mental abilities, socio-economic statuses, political views, gender identities, sexual orientations, family structures, cultural values and beliefs.
Except smokers. 🙂
Op sec is the worst excuse.
You don’t want your UAV pilot watching infantry tactics?
As if SAS have some special Karma Sutra moves that they can’t let on.
Like a swirl with their palm, and George Kostanza’s going to screw it up if he uses it.
Everybody wants a good clip for funker530 or LiveLeak, after all.
And the best clips are from overwatch of Tier 1 or other SF doorkickers.
Closely followed by IED crews suffering from that terrible scourge, premature detonation.
My personal favoirite came out of Kosovo. A bunch of Serbs in a Lada decided to do some roll-by shootings of German Army checkpoints.
All went well up to the point where they ran into a checkpoint that just happened to have a Leopard 2A5 reinforcing it. You see the thing come to a screeching halt, as the first spray of MG3 fire punches a neat lttle line of holes in the windscreen.
The schutzarschen did a lot of cowering behind the engine decks and popping shots off at gunmen unseen off-camera. But the Leo’s Crew Commander was having none of the Slavs’ shit.
4 or 5 belts of coaxial MG3 later, the car was an absolute mess. The 7.62mm rounds have even done in the engine block. Remarkably, the dudes in the car survived.
Don’t mess with panzertruppen. Whether they speak German or not…
Offering three or four bullshit excuses isn’t better than one bullshit excuse.
It looks like you are looking for bullshit excuses.
And the more you spout, the more suspect your audience thinks you are.
Silly Head Sheds…
Cheers Mitch M glad I waited.
I had (one deceased) identical twins and personalities couldn’t be more different.
Why people believe they can’t draw – and how to prove they can (15:03)
Dave Prowse, star of A Clockwork Orange and Star Wars, has died aged 85.
Sinc, please ban 2020 for being, well, 2020-ish…
☹️
I’d Ed’s to be believed he’s got a retarded twin out there somewhere.
*** adoption agencies have very strict criteria for adoptees hence the twins are typically moving into remarkably similiar environments. ***
That’s probably true where both Twins were adopted out, but the instances where one twin was adopted and one wasn’t, the environments weren’t similar, but the life paths, choices of the Twins were remarkably similar.
New rules treat religious activities by foreigners as espionage
The new regulations require total separation between foreign and Chinese religious groups. They demand total submission to China’s laws, regulations, and policies. Membership (names, visa, residence), materials (books, brochures, audio-visual), and meeting places must be closely monitored. No external religious symbols are allowed.
Numbers has ruined this site, aided & abetted by the people who keep replying to the dimwit.
It was a good blog once, no more.
Sinc, you screwed your own blog.
Goodbye.
The Guardian reports on the Green Dream – that isn’t.
A couple from Kent have described how it took them more than nine hours to drive 130 miles home from Bournemouth as they struggled to find a working charger capable of producing enough power to their electric car.
Linda Barnes and her husband had to visit six charging stations as one after another they were either out of order, already had a queue or were the slow, older versions that would never be able to provide a fast enough charge in the time.
While the couple seem to have been “incredibly unlucky”, according to the president of the AA, Edmund King, their case highlights some of the problems that need ironing out before electric car owners can rely on the UK’s charging infrastructure.
The couple, who love their new fully electric Porsche Taycan 4S, which has a range of about 250 miles, contacted the Guardian to describe how difficult it is to recharge a car away from home. Their journey would have taken two and a half hours in a conventional car, they say.
The pair are not the first owners who love their electric cars to complain that the UK’s charging network is poorly maintained, complicated and hugely difficult to navigate via its various apps and payment systems.
The latest electric cars require fast 50kW-100kW chargers to refill on the go but they are hard to find and are often out of action.
Their journey shows the scale of the challenge the government faces if it is to have a working infrastructure in place ahead of its ban on new petrol and diesel cars in 2030.
Read on for lots of whinging….
Tom toons. I ignore the usual suspects.
Darth Vader is dead?
Maybe he’s just become more powerful than we can possibly imagine.
Thanks for your work Mr Prowse.
‘Goodbye.’
Oh bugger. That’s banana-related commentary done. Outsourcing may be required.
Fuck off Ted (the very similar one) and don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out.
Smart dog
or naughty dog?
‘The pair are not the first owners who love their electric cars to complain that’…….
It’s not the car. it’s not the charging speed or capacity. It’s not how it feels, deep inside. It’s not the shit infrastructure that can’t support the shit car or it’s ability to move around.
That it’s someone else’s fault, and that free stuff will fix it.
Oustanding news.
Midget ranga cheat has a soft-tissue injury, is off the ground and is most likely fucked for the season.
C’mon young Pucovski. It’s yours! Take it! TAKE IT!!!
Goodbye here is like hello
I bet he rang his PR agent first
Hello.
Darth Vader is dead.
Darth Vader, aka David Prowse gone. RIP and may the force be with you…
Snap Zippy
It was a good blog once, no more.
Sinc, you screwed your own blog.
Goodbye.
Ooo! Oooo!
Flounce?! 😃
Is it a flounce?😃😃
Please say it’s a flounce… ☹️
It’ll be a flounce. Nothing surer.
Flounce rating: D+. Could have smiled a bit more, didn’t quite details everyone else’s faults to the requisite detail.
I expect better on the next attempt, after his return.
*detail everyone else’s*
Poor sentence construction. That’ll get him back.
Here’s Why You Should Skip the Covid Vaccine
It is a long article. Read it if you want more details.
Stack – I liked James Earl Jones in Strangelove and Conan. He’s a trouper. It must be hard doing an acting gig when you are the voice and someone else is the body. Combining body language with verbal language would be a challenge.
Agree. An A grade flounce requires insults relating to a mouldy dildo and I hate you all.
..
Take the princess and the wookie to my ship.
Not a Golden Flounce?
Possibly an Impending Flounce.
Time will tell.
I wouldn’t bother with a flounce unless accompanied with a half tuck.
Piss weak.
It’ll be a flounce. Nothing surer.
I am a happy Anger (contradictory as this sounds).
I have witnessed my.first flounce. 😊
Points for a gratuitous whack at Snic though.
I love the Golden Flounce pic.
Tells a thousand words. Mostly words of complaint.
Or, there’s always … Drama!
An excellent fallback position.
Rex, I’m sad your first time was so disappointing.
Snort.
Warner’s being carted off to hospital.
In a Kia people mover. No Lambo for some time for you, you defective little cack-handed houso.
Except that many won’t be given a choice.
It’s too easy to fudge data. Biomedicine has huge statistical problems and just today a friend told me he is amazed at how often researchers ignore data.
It can take years for problems to emerge with new treatments.
I won’t be rushing to the front of the line but nursing home residents and staff, medical staff, and emergency workers will not have a choice.
Huge conflict of interest: so much money to be made so vaccine manufacturers will be rushing and cutting corners to be on the market before the rush of vaccines comes along by all the others.
@ Nick-
Rex, I’m sad your first time was so disappointing.
I am surprisingly easily pleased.
This is a factor in why I frighten some people, easily irritate others and get on like a house on fire (the pyromania helps 🤪) with more…
Re Nature / Nuture debate when I started in Psychology, Burt’s theory was still the Vogue , that is 30% Nature 70% Nurture until it was falsified ( made up the number of separated at birth identical twins . ) Percentages changed to 30% nuture / 70% nature as science of genetics gained more knowledge . However it was still said Nature was still only a predisposition. Thinking was as more genetic research discovered the higher Nature percentage would go up . It was not that long ago for instance that hording was found to have a genetic component . In what I have noticed that even identical twins are not treated identically and that the first born seemed to be more competitive not enough numbers for evidence tho’.
LOL, not long after I was legal drinking in one of the pubs in rural Victoria where they used to have a happy hour every Friday night. Free pots from 6-6:15, one of these Fridays 2 old codgers took issue with each other but had better form than these blokes…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8997681/Bizarre-road-rage-brawl-two-men-trade-blows-middle-Perth-road-minor-prang.html
I wonder if he ever got his “profit share”
https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/why-darth-vader-never-gets-paid-a-lesson-in-hollywood-accounting-20150403-1mbcqj.html
Everyone will be getting it, no exceptions.
The spin is now “some coercion may be involved”. You can say that again.
For some reason it’s in the arse rather than the arm, must be incredibly painful.
Read a while ago that WA is hiring Special Constables, or similar, have given them powers to remove underwear in order to insert the needle.
Scotty will be toast once that happens, no wonder every man and his dog is after the hapless Albo’s job.
Same here, Mitch. I have read enough on this topic to know that the vaccine is a risk, not a benefit, to my health.
I would like all those advocating the vaccine, starting with the leaders: Gates, Soros, Fauci, Tedros, Guterres and politicians to line up with their families and take the shot in public. Then, we wait for six months and observe how they are coping.
After that, we’ll decide.
It is neither nature nor nurture.
It is will.
A man can will in himself whatever he wants.
The bloke behind the wheel just lost his daughter to C. The moment he hits the accelerator, all care to the car is lost in the wind.
‘Read a while ago that WA is hiring Special Constables, or similar, have given them powers to remove underwear in order to insert the needle.’
Where and when, you gibbering fool? No? Thought not.
What you’re talking about is the use of force to facilitate a medical procedure. Are they making the ‘Special Constables’ medical practitioners as well for the purpose of the relevant Acts so this can happen?
No? Thought not.
Shorter Ed, and from earlier: ‘I tell a lot of lies, mh.’
Seemed like an impromptu, out of the blue, totally unexpected flounce to me. B+ at least.
Shatterzzz, what a terrific pic of your grandchildren, no wonder you are proud as punch about them. It’s so good when you can manage to get a whole bunch like that together, especially if they don’t live close by. And no-one is looking away, or grizzling, or picking their nose, which is rare to achieve with a crowd.
You beat me by one, for I have six not seven of them and I am hoping to get them all together for a big photo next Christmas; can’t manage it this one. I have a fairly good pic on a side table which shows me and five of mine, but there is another one to add now. Seeing him soon in Queensland and can’t wait.
December 2020, the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).
Moonlight Sonata (Full) (17:25)
True or False Quiz:
Alleged Willie Brown quotes- https://www.sfweekly.com/news/reader-quiz-which-willie-brown-quotes-are-stranger-than-fiction/
Nature provides a variety of potential responses to a variety of environments. For instance I was born with a propensity to eat cheesecake. My nurturing exposed me to a vast variety of cheesecakes to which I could either prioritise, ignore or eat with cream and/or ice-cream. The interaction of these variables which change in themselves as well as relative to each other has produced this current overwhelming nurtured and natural longing for this:
https://norecipes.com/burnt-basque-cheesecake/
I’ll see your My Lai and raise you a Khmer Rouge.
Worrying sign. Maybe Alito isn’t the rock-solid pro-Trump Justice we thought he was.
A man can will in himself whatever he wants.
I learned it as. .Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Unfortunately at the moment, I can not recall whom to h/t.
shatterzzz what a beautiful family photo such blessings – thank you made my day
Read a while ago that WA is hiring Special Constables, or similar, have given them powers to remove underwear in order to insert the needle.’
Where and when, you gibbering fool? No? Thought not.
What you’re talking about is the use of force to facilitate a medical procedure. Are they making the ‘Special Constables’ medical practitioners as well for the purpose of the relevant Acts so this can happen?
No? Thought not.
Edgy now extends his list of things he has problems with to arses…
It’s alright Edgy. Stay away from the carbs, drink lots of milk, and if you focus on your Buteyko breathing hard enough (and think about lots and lots of Naz-eee traffic paddles) you will be able to destroy all the vaccine particles with the nitrous oxide you generate in your nose…
At least it might take your mind off hating policemen for a time…
Schopenhauer put it differently …
“A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.”
It is neither nature nor nurture.
It is will.
A man can will in himself whatever he wants.
History is littered with the corpses of men who thought as much.
Romans 7 is nearer the mark:
Rev Arky Crowley?
Very luciferian.
Go for it, young Will.
I reckon he should call a presser, announce that you don’t break up a winning combo and insist that Marcus Harris be added to the squad.
Two huge risk factors for shizophrenia and ASD are maternal immune activation and difficult birth; though I think genetic components is an essential but not sufficient pre-requisite. It is not a specific genetic component, it could be a number of genomic configurations.
I heard a psychiatrist say that emigration is a bigger risk factor for schizophrenia than genes. He argued that the stress of emigration and of being an outsider in the new country was the big driver. I read a fascinating alternative hypothesis regarding that. Mothers who emigrated from poor beginnings had a small birth canal due to lack of good nutrition during growing years but the developing fetus received optimal nutrition in the first world(British study) so there was a mismatch between fetus size and birth canal size leading to birth complications. That’s a testable hypothesis but I don’t know if the tests were done.
In IQ studies the higher the SES the stronger the association with genetics. In lower SES it largely washes out and anyone familiar with neurodevelopmental trajectories can see why that happens(think “enriched environment” and “synapse pruning”). That is one big reason why I become angry when I hear about indigenous disadvantage. Single biggest variable in the psychological and physical health, and cognitive potential, is the home environment. NEVER do I see that referenced by all those bleeding hearts because then they have to speak about domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, the lack of books in the home, the lack of emphasis on work and education, the need to work for their children’s future.
‘insist that Marcus Harris be added’
Oho. The double down.
Try willing to fly like superman. See where it gets you.
Or do you only will.what you figure you can get?
Steve Smith almost took flight!
Yeah.
That was no permanent flounce.
The Big One will go like this:-
1. An accomplice will announce (at least thrice) that there is an alternative site over at the furniture store “just in case” SS Catallaxy hits an iceberg;
2. There will be then a solid wall of insult trolling and defamation/18C baiting for 12-18 hours;
3. If the bait is not taken there will be a glorious flounce or Sinc will sink him.
.
I predict this.
On or about the Ides of Christmas.
This week the appropriate question is …
“What would Diego Maradona do?”
As much as I do not want Australia or any of the people in it to be carrying out war crimes (whether they are discovered or not)… there’s no such thing as a polite and respectable war.
When exemplar promotion fails, then explicit expectation fails, then reason fails, then litigation fails, then intimidation fails, then drone and cyberops fail, you are down to using force with actual bombs and bullets to neutralise an incubating terrorist threat to multiple western nations. All the nicey-pie has failed. There is no nicey-pie any more.
The actual context matters. I don’t know what happened. Exactly what the circumstances were is important to deciding whether the “blooding” claim is true. I do not want a “warrior culture” in the ADF, I want a professional fighting force. That’s why the blooding claim is disturbing. But as bad as that is, it may not be the final deciding factor.
All I know is, if we want all the nicey-pie options to succeed in the future, surely that prospect is raised, and the prospect of war is lessened, when adversaries know that the nasty options are really nasty and we won’t be holding the threat of court marshal over our own troops heads every time the action heats up. That is part of maintaining a credible defense force. The ADF must act on behalf of the public, but the public’s support will be flimsy and inauthentic until they are educated about some awkward realities and thereby made complicit in the deal.
The bottom line is that the purpose of soldiers is not to be liked by our public but to be feared by the enemy.
Fake teachers? Never (the Hun):
‘Bethany Stilo, 37, made fake qualifications by copying templates from the teaching watchdog website, changing the name to her own and inventing a registration number, a court heard.
‘Ms Stilo pleaded guilty to one count of holding herself out to be a registered early childhood teacher and received a fine without conviction on November 6.’
And:
‘Ms Stilo, through her lawyer, claimed she didn’t know she needed a teacher registration for the practitioner role in early childhood early intervention. But after 18 months in the job, she was asked for proof and “she really panicked”.
After claiming her registration card was at Chisholm Institute, where she taught a class one day a week, the court heard Ms Stilo sought to create one. “She took a snapshot of the VIT (Victorian Institute of Teaching) card on the website and changed the name and number,” Ms Roodenburg said.
‘She then searched on the internet how to create a fake card, found Officeworks sold a printer that made them, bought the printer and presented the card to her employer the next day.’
Apparently PhDs are $250 at Officeworks as well.
Poor old Rex, Diggers have been going public on our blokes doing the wrong thing in Afghanistan for ten years, he’s still in denial, and if it did happen, it’s some shiny arses fault in Red Hill, he blusters.
What about the toll on blokes who are forced to witness atrocities, Rex?
Here’s the Wiki entry on Audie Murphy, the psychological effects his war service had on the remainder of his life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy#Post-traumatic_stress
Apparently PhDs are $250 at Officeworks as well.
Yep, buy 3 and they’ll throw in a couple of Masters in gender studies.
‘our blokes doing the wrong thing in Afghanistan for ten years’
With no apparent recriminations against the people supposed to be responsible, in the most highly visible and micromanaged conflict in history. As has been said, and much better by others. Yeah righto.
Take your traffic paddles and your crystalline salt hysteria somewhere else, because your vagina is clearly giving you trouble.
To recap: ‘I tell a lot of lies, mh.’
Why do you need professional qualifications for advanced sandcastle construction and monkey bar supervision (although I suspect monkey bars might be banned)?
In Sinoville they are given out, usually to wealthy business figures, which galls the odd few who have a real one.
Perfect crickit scenario.
1. The cheating ranga does his rehab by playing X-Box and pushing the ankle-biters around in a pram because recent SAS graduate Candice “doesn’t do that shit anymore”.
2. The ranga turns up to the First Test about 63.1% fit, but gets his way and has Burns opening with him.
3. In the second or third over, Burns dabs one to point and calls for a quick single. The ranga makes it half-way before his dodgy groin explodes and he is run out. In other words, Burns burns him.
4. The Aussies go on to make 4/600 (dec) on a flat-track-bully deck.
5. Pucovski Tweets … “I would never have called that single on an old man before he was warmed up”.
A friend sent me this earlier today:
Going in Through the Back Door: Challenging Straight Male Homohysteria, Transhysteria, and Transphobia Through Receptive Penetrative Sex Toy Use
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/social-sciences/7-hoax-articles-accepted-for-publication-in-various-journals-t55525.html
Come on Cohenite, you could get that Masters over a weekend and a few reds. 😛
Ponderable Points 🐻
One
Two
A man can will in himself whatever he wants.
Can a lady do that too Arky?
If so how?
Just joking. But sounds like new age psychological claptrap, to my mind. One simply cannot change reality.
🐹
One
Two
Three
It’s Sunday. So ………..
Four
Five
Six
Not bad; one of my favourites was this little ripper:
Termination of intractable hiccups with digital rectal massage
Practical too.
From Dot at 8:39 pm:
Smith is a cheat. He was appointed to the most important public position in the country and used it to cheat. The other ugly little mong who was appointed vice captain is also a low grade dishonest cheat.
Why either of them is anywhere near an Australian team is a travesty.
The Spaminator ate up the first lot. It didn’t like one word.
When did batsmen become batters?
Biden dreams of being the new Roosevelt
Did Roosevelt sniff and touch up little girls?
Two huge risk factors for shizophrenia and ASD are maternal immune activation and difficult birth; though I think genetic components is an essential but not sufficient pre-requisite. It is not a specific genetic component, it could be a number of genomic configurations.
I heard a psychiatrist say that emigration is a bigger risk factor for schizophrenia than genes. He argued that the stress of emigration and of being an outsider in the new country was the big driver. I read a fascinating alternative hypothesis regarding that. Mothers who emigrated from poor beginnings had a small birth canal due to lack of good nutrition during growing years but the developing fetus received optimal nutrition in the first world(British study) so there was a mismatch between fetus size and birth canal size leading to birth complications. That’s a testable hypothesis but I don’t know if the tests were done.
In IQ studies the higher the SES the stronger the association with genetics. In lower SES it largely washes out and anyone familiar with neurodevelopmental trajectories can see why that happens(think “enriched environment” and “synapse pruning”). That is one big reason why I become angry when I hear about indigenous disadvantage. Single biggest variable in the psychological and physical health, and cognitive potential, is the home environment. NEVER do I see that referenced by all those bleeding hearts because then they have to speak about domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, the lack of books in the home, the lack of emphasis on work and education, the need to work for their children’s future.
The vast majority of what psychologists and psychiatrists think about “Mental Illnesses”
like “Schizophrenia” and “Autistic Spectrum Disorder” is very very wrong.
Trust me on this.
The secret to successfully dealing with such things is discipline of the self,
will(it is a finite resource and must be renewed and replenished),
insight,
and most important of all,
humor.
Intelligence does not even rate a mention,
I’m afraid.
😁
**Denim shorts are also helpful**
More than a million angry fans have signed a petition urging Hollywood honchos to boot Amber Heard off the movie “Aquaman 2” — saying she “ruined” ex-husband Johnny Depp’s career.
The rude little black dude is Beetle Juice, who Howard Stern used to have on his program. I don’t know if this is a stunt or whatever, b ut it’s shit like this that made America great.
https://twitter.com/Rmfc7712/status/1332941224370552832
If only they saw themselves that way.
But the useless fuckers get their Cert IV in sandcastles and then go all Sigmund Freud on steroids.
Wildly diagnosing all sorts of disorders before morning tea day one.
Any slight sign of shyness, a little aggression in boys, any form of non-compliance and it is off to the psych.
Back in the old days, the types who now work in child care would be called ‘a bit simple’ and would have worked in a factory somewhere.
Ƶĩppʯ (ȊꞪꞨV)
#3675138, posted on November 29, 2020 at 9:22 pm
I think Johnny had a fair bit to do with that himself.
Bang!
Lol. Frank Thring makes an appearance on Ben Hur.
Nice toga.
..
..
A man can will in himself whatever he wants.
..
No.
They still are.
The thing is, they now have a certificate and are wannabe clinical psychologists.
They are now perfessionals and will become more heavily unionised, with increasing salaries for less work (reduced minder/brat ratios)
The secret to successfully dealing with such things is discipline of the self,
will(it is a finite resource and must be renewed and replenished),
insight, and most important of all,
humor.
No. The secret is properly tested psychotropic medication, regular follow-up with the treating psychiatrist, and supervised living arrangements if the mentally person has trouble functioning.
And if the person suffering with that mental illness has children in their care, good psychiatric treatment is uppermost. In my opinion. People with schizophrenia have visual and auditory hallucinations. You can’t let them be in charge of kids.
Audie Murphy was a bit of a terror.
As was our own Ben Roberts-Smith VC, who hopefully won’t get damaged any further:
Audie Murphy recalled after the D-Day landings:
As I round a slight bend in the gully, I run head-on into two Germans. For an instant they recoil in surprise; and that is their mistake. My combat experience has taught me the value of split seconds. Before the Germans can regain their balance, I kill them both with a carbine.
Murphy, the most highly-decorated soldier of America’s armies in WWII, was by his own account, and of others, a most efficient despatcher of the enemy. In one battle, where he and his squad encountered heavy resistance, he stormed two positions, one after the other, and killed at least nine German soldiers. He despatched, by one estimate, 241 of the enemy, and in one engagement led an assault where he personally killed 50 soldiers.
There are other, albeit rare, examples from other armies. The Australian soldier Albert Jacka was thought so effective by his Brigadier that “A company under his lead was as good as an extra battalion to me”; testimony to Jacka’s extreme aggression in combat and the spirit it imbued in his men. US soldier David Rubitsky was estimated by the US Army to have killed over 500 of the enemy when fighting in New Guinea, and thought of himself “I was completely an insane man”.
I won’t trust you because a friend of mine who is not a psych has written two books on ASD and I will trust him because he is an Aspie who specialises in helping autists. I’ve read hundreds of studies on ASD and a dozen or so books so I advise that the issue is frustratingly complex and beyond my ability to comprehend.
If you know how to help those people then hop to it because the savings in suffering, lives and money will be incalculable. You’ll be famous, you’ll be off to Sweden, and think of the schadenfreude you’ll enjoy showing up all the psychs.
‘perfessionals’
Educators, thank you. All bearing Certificates of Attendance for local requirement-to-change-gender-at-four-years-of-age courses.
There’s more biting each other in the staff room than outside.
I had occasion to have a look at the Age front today. In 2020 Summit Mark II News comes this shit stain:
‘Industry groups, unions, universities and sporting organisations are set to join forces to generate policy and project ideas that would power Victoria’s economic recovery and define the state’s post-pandemic recovery.
Talks are underway involving the AFL, companies including KPMG, leading universities and Victoria’s peak union body to join the Victoria Summit, which is being organised by the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The Andrews Government welcomed the formation of the summit and VECCI chief executive Paul Guerra, backed by Trades Hall secretary Luke Hilakari, said it would harness trust formed between government, business and unions during the pandemic.
” It’ll be one of those ones where you drop the ego at the door and bright minds around the state come together,” Mr Guerra said, adding the group will collaborate on ideas for key growth sectors such as renewable energy, artificial intelligence and medical research.’
I almost choked when I read that there was trust fomented between the government and business. At why the AFL are on board with this is beyond any rational thought. Victoria, the place to be for carpetbaggers and spivs. FMD
To will is not the same as to wish.
Poor old Rex, Diggers have been going public on our blokes doing the wrong thing in Afghanistan for ten years, he’s still in denial, and if it did happen, it’s some shiny arses fault in Red Hill, he blusters.
What about the toll on blokes who are forced to witness atrocities, Rex?
That’s a pretty spectacular, almost Numbers-esque unrelated overreaction to my suggestion you don’t like arses, Edgy.
Some childhood or young adult trauma involving cheeky needles?
Poor bastard. At least it isn’t as awful as Carbohydrates and policemen…
Speaking of which, has anything from Rudd’s gabfest come to pass?
The does tut-tutt while the bucks rut
proper pronouns and antler-removal will probably change how things really are.
but, the fuck would I know eh?
Mysterious monolith in US desert disappears
Aren’t you lucky!
Speaking of which, has anything from Rudd’s gabfest come to pass?
More and ever more funding for the yartz.
Ever-increasing quantities of ‘free’ money for mendicants to engage in spurious patronage for their favored mates to ‘create’ infantile-grade ironmongery, chewed crayon shits and communist propaganda ‘plays’ so awful Communists themselves would purge the writers…
Well, the wheat harvest is in and my final day as a chaser bin driver has arrived.
Another para added to the CV. 🙂
It has been an eye opener, long hard and hot days, sweaty and itchy work clothes, and mind numbingly boring at times, but working with a bunch of “true blue” people full of good humour, generosity and a genuine concern for the land made it all worthwhile.
I volunteered to take this on to help out because of the shortage of harvest workers in WA due to border closures and Covid quarantine rules. Wages were supposed to be daily lunch, a BBQ dinner and a ride home from the farm after being shouted a few cold beverages. Bonus was a few bags of local sheep meat for the freezer.
To my very great surprise my “boss” presented me with a substantial cheque this afternoon telling me I had saved him from big crop losses and wages he would have had to pay a contractor. He also told me I was possibly the worst chaser bin driver he had ever seen and that his 14 year old son would run rings around me. He would accept no argument over me accepting the cheque.
Pondering recent events, I have decided the cheque will go to the SAS Resources Fund.
@ Zippy-
A couple of mates with a flat-bed truck and a Hiab crane are no doubt pissing themselves laughing. Both at the “Ermagerd! Am not saying it Aliumses, but… Allans from spehsss!” conspiracy theory crowds, and the poor Project Manager who has spent the last few weeks panicking about the missing Mirrored Steel decorative column from his build site, only to suddenly find it sitting innocently back in the yard, in he exact place itndisappeared from.
Audie Murphy recalled after the D-Day landings:
Different D-Day. Murphy landed in the south of France in Operation Dragoon, not at Normandy.
He didn’t ‘tackle’ anything.
Roosevelt was an idiot who worsened the Depression and took advantage of it to aggrandise himself.
Good work Pedro.
Getting a crop in, or assisting in the process I found to be one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done.
Never got a cheque though. Massive thumbs up for putting yours in the place you did.
*applause*
Well Done Pedro. True Aussie stuff.
He didn’t ‘tackle’ anything.
Roosevelt was an idiot who worsened the Depression and took advantage of it to aggrandise himself.
Are you suggesting FDR was Kevin’ before it was popular? Obama!
How Rudd-y typical!
the issue is frustratingly complex and beyond my ability to comprehend.
Well, yes.
This shows you have insight Mitch.
😁
The secret to successfully dealing with such things is discipline of the self,
will(it is a finite resource and must be renewed and replenished),
insight, and most important of all,
humor.
The secret is cheesecake.
No. The secret is properly tested psychotropic medication, regular follow-up with the treating psychiatrist, and supervised living arrangements if the mentally person has trouble functioning.
Imagine actually believing in chemical imbalance theory in 2020.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ja ha!!!!
The secret is
cheesecake… with a dash of what Pedro did
The secret is
cheesecakeouzo.…dammit
Criminy.
Mitch Starc’s having his arse handed to him.
If you know how to help those people
Look just so we are crystal clear,
I am “those people”.
Stop reading “genius” nerds with
“groundbreaking studies of 20 participants.”
😂
If you would like to read something actually practical and useful,
start with:
The Heartland by Nathan Filer.
Email Sinc for a copy, he has it.
It’s very educational.
Well done Pedro. You are now a true local.
In fact, there’s a massive argument now for dropping* him for the third match.
This over – NB(with a catch), 6,2,6,0,1,2. 0/82 from nine overs. Seeya.
*’Resting’
The West is fucked: Tommy Robinson:
https://www.tr.news/stopthelawfare/?mc_cid=4b0486abdb&mc_eid=fcd91137ed
The very first steam loco.
Chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell is working through a list of dozens of senior officers who led special forces soldiers at the centre of war crimes allegations to determine which commanders should be held accountable and how they will be punished.
It includes former army chiefs, special operations commanders, task group leaders, Special Air Service Regiment commanding officers, and troop and squadron commanders.
Those on the list received command medals and other awards, including Orders of Australia, for their leadership of special forces soldiers allegedly involved in the murders of 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners identified in the Brereton war crimes inquiry.
Defence declined to comment on the document, saying it was working on “a comprehensive implementation plan” to act on the Brereton inquiry’s recommendations. But it has left open the possibility of demotions, sackings and the stripping of honours.
There is growing urgency to the process, amid a backlash over the stripping of Meritorious Unit Citations from 3000 special forces soldiers, and a warning from Scott Morrison that he expects senior officers to be held to account.
Former SASR commanders and those who held the role of Special Operations Commander Australia (SOCAUST) are likely to come under heavy scrutiny, Defence sources said.
Senior Defence leaders continued to authorise honours and awards for special forces commanders even after serious problems were uncovered in the elite military units, The Australian can also reveal.
General Campbell and Chief of Army Rick Burr — in their former roles as chief and deputy chief of army — approved a June 2015 Order of Australia for Lieutenant Colonel Greg Daley, who led SASR from 2012 to 2014.
The award — to “Lieutenant Colonel G” due to his protected identity at the time — said his “visionary leadership” of SASR “has directly led to the special operations community being viewed as the force of choice by government for sensitive and strategic missions”.
This was despite a March 2015 directive from then-Major General Burr acknowledging: “A series of recent notifiable incidents at SASR have demonstrated shortcomings in governance, security, safety and administration within SOCOMD (Special Operations Command)”.
Multiple sources have confirmed that when incoming SOCAUST Jeff Sengelman queried Perth-based SASR soldiers in June 2015 over the poor state of the regiment, one sergeant replied: “Sir, why are you kicking us in the arse when our former (commanding officer) just got a gong?”
Colonel Daley’s former commander from September 2013 to December 2014, Major General Daniel McDaniel, was promoted in 2019 to serve as deputy commander of the US Army’s Indo-Pacific Command.
The Australian is not suggesting Colonel Daley or General McDaniel had knowledge of alleged war crimes committed by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, only that they were in senior command roles during periods of identified cultural failings.
The Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force inquiry undertaken by NSW Supreme Court judge Paul Brereton found the alleged murders involving 25 current or former ADF personnel did not take place in “the heat of battle” and were instead the result of a perverted “warrior culture”.
While there was no credible information that troop, squadron and task group commanders knew or suspected that a particular alleged war crime was occurring, Justice Brereton concluded they should “bear moral command responsibility and accountability for what happened under their command and control”.
The report notes that “some domestic commanders of (the) SASR bear significant responsibility for contributing to the environment in which war crimes were committed” by allowing a “warrior culture” to develop.
At least 30 senior officers occupied command roles over the course of the war, either in Afghanistan or in Australia as SOCAUST or SASR commanders. The Brereton report found responsibility for the alleged war crimes he identified “does not extend to higher headquarters”, including the position of Middle East commander held by General Campbell from 2011-12. Defence last week issued “show cause” notices to 13 SASR soldiers implicated in alleged war crimes identified in the Brereton report — a right of reply before they are sacked.
But a Defence spokeswoman on Sunday said it would take time to deal fully with the complex matters set out in the report. “Where the inquiry report identifies credible information of alleged misconduct, disciplinary or administrative action may be taken,” she said.
“This may include actions to address command responsibility, culture, leadership and accountability at all levels in the chain of command.”
A spokesman for Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said the process “requires comprehensive consultation across government and relevant agencies”.
The now-retired Major General Sengelman, who declined to comment, identified cultural and command problems in SASR soon after he took the role of SOCAUST in December 2014 and relayed them to Lieutenant General David Morrison, the then-chief of army.
In an email to General Morrison in May 2015, General Sengelman warned of “serious endemic problems” with SOCOMD.
“This exposes Defence to a risk of not being able to undertake the range of special operations missions required to support Australia’s national interests,” General Sengelman wrote.
In a September 2015 letter to General Campbell, General Sengelman noted a longstanding culture of alcohol abuse in SASR had been tolerated by commanders. It included anonymous comments volunteered by soldiers detailing “systemic” consumption of alcohol on operations by soldiers and senior officers, and revealed the existence of an on-base pub known as the Fat Lady’s Arms.
One soldier said: “I drank alcohol contrary to army policy … I witnessed this behaviour at all levels of command and therefore was not of the opinion that what I was doing was wrong.”
The ADF has already abolished the SASR’s troubled 2 Squadron — one of four — after it was singled out amid.
But the Prime Minister said last week he wanted accountability not only for individual alleged war crimes “but also in the chain of command”. “That’s what I’ve made very clear through the Defence Minister, who has made that point to both the Chief of the Defence Force as well as the oversight panel,” Mr Morrison said.
Oz entire article
Is the list by current rank or alphabetical?
Just wondering if he’s near the top at “C-Campbell” or right at the top, coz now Chief of Defence Force.
An pro-blond tale?
“Think and Grow Rich”, Napoleon Hill.
Well done, Pedro. I found seeding and harvest the most rewarding times of the year.
Pedro, Well done. Downright decent of you, all round.
I’m almost jealous.
Only ‘almost’ – coz the memory is strong of the itch of [insert crop type here] dust.
Multiple sources have confirmed that when incoming SOCAUST Jeff Sengelman queried Perth-based SASR soldiers in June 2015 over the poor state of the regiment, one sergeant replied: “Sir, why are you kicking us in ‘the arse when our former (commanding officer) just got a gong?”’
Brilliant. Never ask the top knobs, always ask the sergeants.
Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
Unfortunately at the moment, I can not recall whom to h/t.
“Think and Grow Rich”, Napoleon Hill.
Unfortunately this is not true.
If it was, I would have published:
Think And Grow Hair, by Stimpson J. Cat.
No.
Heard is a lying, unfaithful, perjuring, physically abusive whore who ruined a man who genuinely loved her.
His drug abuse never stopped his career beforehand.
Her “case” and getting away with it are absolute travesties.
This is why you hope there is a god and eternal judgment.
The word is spreading!
Life goes on…
A Benedictine monastery is founded and under construction in Tasmania.
They’re well short of their funding goal but they’ll get there, I’m sure:
https://www.notredamemonastery.org/aid-main
And to think we ‘give’ a billion a year to the ABC.
Good Lord. He’s at it again. Pictures of the SS.
I thought Sinc gave him a warning about this sort of thing.
I think any argument he has to make is lost.
Get outa here, Numbers. You are a sad case.
I don’t want the SS in my army.
But I do want some hard men there, soldiering.
Not dithering idiots and communists at heart.
‘Heard is a lying, unfaithful, perjuring, physically abusive whore’
Who shit in the bed of the man that loved her, paid all her bills and put up with her D grade wannabe A grade celeb bullshit.
She can get fucked.
I was going to say this earlier but forgot.
Not a big fan of Depp, sorry.
They deserved each other.
If you are looking for honesty, integrity and faithfulness in that household, it was a bobbing finish between Pistol and Boo, with daylight third.
From an earlier theme – 18 days to Day 1 of the First Test, and (Focks):
‘Warner hurt himself diving to field a ball early in India’s chase, immediately grabbing at his groin before attempting to walk the injury off. It quickly became clear that would not be possible, with the team physio called on to escort him of the field for a more thorough examination. He was taken for scans during the game although the results may not be known until Monday.
‘Groin strains typically take within two to six weeks to recover from depending upon the severity of the injury, which would put him in serious risk of missing the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar series on December 17.
“Not good signs there for David Warner,” Adam Gilchrist said on Fox Cricket. “He is in a bit of trouble here. This is a big moment here for the summer really because a bad groin strain can take a long time to heal.
‘Former fast bowler Brett Lee, who battled groin injuries in his career, had serious concerns. “Without pre-empting things it doesn’t look good at all. He could have even potentially ripped it off the bone the way he is walking.”’
Happy fucking days.
‘Good Lord. He’s at it again. Pictures of the SS.’
Yep. He gets more demented when painted into corners.
Johnny Depp will be doing Jack Sparrow appearances opening shopping centres and theme parks at $500 a throw until he dies.
The think-yourself-slim movement seems to be growing apace though Stimpy, if the ads I see on TV for things like Noom (whatever that is) are what it is all about.
A very stern Doc (not my old faithful O’Oirish) has said to me I have to lose five kilos and weigh in by January in order to earn my oestrogen script. I am busy thinking myself out of the Covid/Fracture avoirdupois.
Red wine doesn’t count, does it? Especially at Christmas.
I have a lunch next week for which we had to pre-order. I took the seafood salad and the sorbets to follow. Now that is not $50 worth in anyone’s book. I would usually take the stuffed roulette of lamb on creamed potato mash and the sticky date pudding. So I am making sacrifices already. And where’s my medal for all the thinking slim that I am already doing? Beats Dr. BG’s 600 calorie including wine diet.
Good to see you back here helping things along, Stimpy. At Christmastide it is all hands on deck.
Makes you wonder why Sinc doesn’t arsehole him.
Cuts him too much slack because he once outsmarted himself and got a tropical blanket-folding holiday.
Do try and understand his plight. He fell for the Party line, hook, line and sinker fifty years ago, and hasn’t read anything written in the past twenty years, with access to the North Vietnamese archives, to discover how completely he was fooled.
Leigh Lowe
#3675207, posted on November 29, 2020 at 11:14 pm
I can’t recall watching any of his movies but that goes for all movies so means nothing, but he must have been popular with movie goers.
Depriving him of a livelihood is a cruel punishment.
I’m not aware of the charges but, what is he being accused of?
Worth a look.
Good on you, Pedro. Consider yourself an honorary member of the Retired Persons Keep Yourself Busy Club. My rewards for effort get plowed back into Quadrant for which I accept no payment (like most other contributors I suspect) and I find funds for a few other minor donative activities I have.
Hairy’s British rellies have asked that all presents this Christmas should be put into charities, which by agreement we will do. Funny though, about ten years back when I sent their two teenagers certificates saying I had purchased a World Vision goat and pig for them respectively, they didn’t seem to pleased so I went back to joolery and wallets the next year, wrapped for excitement and committed to Australia Post. Glad they have finally come round at last to spreading the good cheer more widely.
At coffee the other day, all the grandma girls were of one mind – all of the grandkid teens want money, or at the least, itune cards or similar, whether they are earning a little or not. I still buy each grandkid one big present, although I ask the older ones what they would like to get. Other kids in ambit get itune cards.
Indeed.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer cheating ranga.
As I say, I hope he bullies his way into the First Test side and promptly blows up, preferably via a sharp single called by Burns.
Domestic violence.
As far as livliehood goes, that’s Hollywood.
A brilliant actress who is too short, or whose tits are too big, or too small, or whose ‘look’ is so last year doesn’t get work.
If producers think Depp is no longer bankable at the box office, it is game over.
A lot of actors are shelved for a lot less.
Truth is, he will probably re-invent himself as a stage actor and work his way back that way.
Lame pics.
has said to me I have to lose five kilos and weigh in by January in order to earn my oestrogen script.
I hate it when the doc goes down that road. Blackmailing bastards!
Phhht.
Ignore him.
They are saying that to everybody.
Passing fad.
Anyone recall who was the commander of JTF 633 in 2011/12?
That would be the gormless twit Angus Campbell himself. Right about now, he would be starting to realise the seriousness of what he foolishly unleashed. Sure, it’s unlikely that he will be in serious trouble, or even have his DSC stripped but he is unlikely to leave the ADF in a blaze of glory and will have to tap-dance to keep his gong. Hopefully he is reflecting on the craven stupidity of accepting the Brereton report as gospel before any allegation has been proven.
Gosh.
This is getting awkward.
Snap! Jupes.
I gather the angry private is posting this Sunday evening. Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling…
Regarding Afghan events. Certain people make allegations about the past. Little if any real proof. Reminds of Lindy and GP.
Has Betfair closed the books on the US Presidential result in Australia? I tried to get on (again) tonight to take advantage of the 20-1 on offer & received the following message:
Tried a couple of different browsers which didn’t help… anyone else have this problem?
I don’t buy books anymore so I’ve ordered it from the library.
Longer than you might think.
The extent of the massacre of everyone in the City of Hue who had the slightest connection to the RVN government took a long time to validate. Ironically, it was the school teachers who were the first to have their hands wired behind their back and taken to the ditch…
By the time the ARVN 1st Division had retaken the city. With some assistance from the US Army and Marines, everything was broken. The immediate priority was to re-establish essential services.
The mass executions that took place by the communists in February and March 1968 were still being investigated into 1969 as the mass graves were discovered. Much of the grim accounting for Hue was passed to Australian Officers of the AATTV. Given the media backlash and hostility immediately following Tet Offensive (The Cronkite effect) involving Australians in that process was thought at the time to add to ‘transparency.’
There are a series of photographs in the AWM collections that feature AATTV’s Major Gordon Brown watching as Vietnamese women say prayers over the remains of clothing found in a mass grave many months later, in 1969. Brown was responsible for co-ordinating the search for the mass graves of communist victims.
In this photo Brown can be readily identified by his slouch hat. About 250 communist victims of the 3-6,000 killed were found just in that one mass grave. By the time that an authoritative Australian guestimate of the murders in Hue could be made Seymour Hersh had broken Mai Lai story. The appalling crimes committed by elements of the US 23rd Division in Mai Lai occurred in January 1968. It wasn’t until November 1969 Hersh informed the world of this terrible event.
There was a lag between the reporting of the massacre at Mai Lai just as there was with the reporting of the massacre at Hue.
Up until Hersh broke the Mai Lai story, the biggest scandal story pushed was the prosecution of the US Sergeant Major of the Army William O Wooldridge Wooldridge, learnt his scamming practice as a penny ante arbitrage operator during the Korean War. He developed this into an operation worth $150 million annually by 1969. (I come to Cat as an economist but stay for the Vietnam ;)) It was an epic rort.
My Lai knocked William O Wooldridge off the front pages in the same way news of the Hue massacre was overshadowed by the tragic events of Mai Lai.
As an aside and because it is somewhat connected and relevant. As far as I’m aware only one Australian was stripped of his awards for malfeasance of any kind for service in Vietnam. It was a 6RAR Sergeant on their first tour that lost his BEM when he got sprung for the similar sort of arbitrage rort Wooldridge was pulling in Korea. I always thought it was tad harsh.
There is at least one precedent for withdrawing a minor individual award but withdrawing a Unit Commendation? Never happened before. A bold concept. A bold and very stupid ‘collective punishment’ concept…
Now that we have completely established that there is lag between bad things that happen during war and the reporting of those events. Let’s examine another Vietnam War Crime that the Brereton Commission tells us absolutely, 100%, take it to the bank, this definitely happened and it was a war crime…
In October 1966 an Australian Intelligence Corp Warrant Officer Ken Borland interrogated a captured Viet Cong soldier. Her name was To Thi Nau, she was the head of the communist Military Proselytising Committee in Hoa Long. It is claimed, without any evidence that Borland tortured To Thi Nau with water at the 1ATF base at Nui Dat. It was not until March 1968 in the aftermath of the great Tet offensive media reset that journalist Martin Russ alleged that To Thi Nau was subjected to water torture by Borland.
What fearless reporting the world received from Martin Russ. 18 months after the event…
The Brereton report maintains that Borland’s interrogation of To Thi Nau constituted a war crime. The Brereton report includes this episode because it’s authors have been given the brief that they need to establish a narrative that ‘this has been going on for years’. Extraordinary claims by the likes of Martin Russ require extraordinary standards of evidence. Martin Russ merely alleges.
Russ was literally “outside the tent”.
The authors of the Brereton Report took Russ’s belated water torture claims and turned them into war crimes gospel. This is wrong.
The authors of the Brereton Report have made extraordinary claims. The authors of the Brereton Report need to demonstrate extraordinary standards of evidence.
From all I’ve seen that they have produced so far, it’ll be a struggle