Petraeus says, in a very polite way, "You are NOT going to lay blame

for this on me."

Breaking news on Benghazi: the CIA spokesman, presumably at the direction of CIA director David Petraeus, has put out this statement: “No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate. ”

It's been a question as to when/what Petraeus would say something; we have the answer.  And yeah, I think he waited as long as he felt he could to speak; and then said it flatly.

Which lays the responsibility for the failure to authorize right at the feet of Obama, Clinton and Panetta.

Vile, backstabbing, treacherous bastards

Having spent a good bit of time nursing a GLD (ground Laser Designator) in several garden spots around the world, something from the report jumped out at me. One of the former SEALs was actively painting the target. That means that Specter WAS ON STATION! Probably an AC130U. A ground laser designator is not a briefing pointer laser. You do not “paint” a target until the weapons system/designator is synched; which means that the AC130 was on station.

Only two places could have called off the attack at that point; the WH situation command (based on POTUS direction) or AFRICOM commander based on information directly from the target area. If the AC130 never left Sigonella (as Penetta [sic] says) that means that the Predator that was filming the whole thing was armed.

If that SEAL was actively “painting” a target; something was on station to engage! And the decision to stand down goes directly to POTUS!
Which means there was a weapon system right effing there that could have taken out the mortar position. And any other gathering of enemy troops. And High Command refused permission. I wonder just what all else we're eventually going to find out about this?

About that 'bayonets and horses' crack,

I don't think any of the president's handlers ever bothered to inform him of the US Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center in Pickel Meadow, California. Established in 1951 to help train Marines for the cold weather conditions that they would have to fight in during the Korean War, the MWTC provides training in fighting in high altitude and cold weather conditions. The training it provides is being put to use daily in the "good war" in Afghanistan. 

One of the more interesting courses that the MWTC provides is one on animal packing. It trains Marines as well as soldiers and airmen in the use of pack animals to deliver supplies and carry heavier equipment.
...
“After coming through the course and learning the basic fundamentals they can pack any kind of animal, from llama, camel, anything,” Head said. “If you’re going to fight compartmentalized conventional war in the mountains, you’ve got to utilize animals. If you don’t, you’re not going to be able to get your logistics, your ammo, basically the five Bs, to your Marines.”

Whole lot of people have already covered the bayonets matter


Yes, I'm posting a lot. Instead of doing what I'd planned, I'm staying inside with a sore throat. So, being in a bad mood already, I might as well bitch about this and other things.
Like this.
Which they, for some reason, wanted to wait until after the election to announce.

"We didn't know, weren't sure what was going on!" says the administration;

...three urgent requests from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. Consulate and subsequent attack nearly seven hours later were denied by officials in the CIA chain of command -- who also told the CIA operators to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.
...
 
The term 'marfi' comes to mind*
Woods, Doherty and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the Consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The quick reaction force from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the Consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight. 

At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Specter gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights. The fighting at the CIA annex went on for more than four hours -- enough time for any planes based in Sigonella Air base, just 480 miles away, to arrive. Fox News has also learned that two separate Tier One Special operations forces were told to wait, among them Delta Force operators.
 Plus the drones.
 And yet
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday that there was not a clear enough picture of what was occurring on the ground in Benghazi to send help. 
"There's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going on here," Panetta said Thursday. "But the basic principle here ... is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on."


*Peter Capstick said that was the word for what came out of the south end of a northbound hyena 
Sounds like some people DID know what was going on and where.

So they had the scapegoat worked out (updated)

as part of a coverup:
Hillary Clinton’s comments to Woods raise even more questions about the White House’s official story on the Benghazi attack, which has already been extremely inconsistent.
After apologizing for his loss, Woods said Clinton told him that the U.S. would “make sure that the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted.”
Well, isn't that bloody interesting?  Even if this HAD been a protest gone bad, they're planning to ARREST AND PROSECUTE A GUY FOR MAKING A VIDEO?

The grieving father also described his brief encounter with President Obama during the ceremony for the Libya victims.
“When he finally came over to where we were, I could tell that he was rather conflicted, a person who was not at peace with himself,” Woods said. “Shaking hands with him, quite frankly, was like shaking hands with a dead fish. His face was pointed towards me but he would not look me in the eye, his eyes were over my shoulder.”

And, our  clown Vice-President:
Woods said Biden came over to his family and asked in a “loud and boisterous” voice, “Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?”
There are ways to say something like that that convey respect; apparently Clown Biden couldn't manage that.


Actually ran across this last night here; their traffic seems to be a bit heavy this morning as they have a 'servers are overloaded' message for some reason...


Added:
Rather than sitting in the Oval Office to tell the American people how and why four Americans died at the hands of an attack by an al-Qaida-linked group, our less-than-optimal president yukked it up with Jay Leno Wednesday night after appearing with David Letterman two days after the attack, worrying about nothing more than his re-election and demonstrating that even after four years of on-the-job training how eminently unqualified he is to be our commander in chief.

Why, Mr. President, weren't there Marines with bayonets in Benghazi?

While the bastard is talking about advances and the Navy,

The Obama administration’s neglect of the Navy can be typified by the early retirement of the USSEnterprise (CVN 65) and its plans to decommission other naval assets. In August of this year, I outlined on NRO why the Enterprise should remain in service, but the Big E is only the most prominent asset slated for premature retirement. The administration also plans to decommission and scrap six Ticonderoga-class cruisers, although the vessels have as many as 15 years of service life left (even without further overhauls).
...
As noted at the Navy-oriented Information Dissemination blog, when the proposed cuts were first outlined in late 2011, the decommissioning plan will take out of service cruisers that can be upgraded with the ballistic missile defense (BMD) package – now a core capability for the Navy – while keeping five cruisers that cannot receive the BMD upgrade.

Read the whole thing, and you'll see why I tend to think it's not 'neglect of the Navy', it's an intentional weakening of it.


In other news, life is calling; bloggage may be pretty thin for a couple of days.

The Dutchman is much improved:

 Am told I will get out within days,
That's both good and bad,  The recovery is being described as nothing less than "miraculous"  I still lean to the left and have to have my front step rebuilt (no handrail) so I can get up and down, in and out.  Will have to get some specs and a quote (bill of material, etc).  I sure can't build this one like I did the last one.   I mean they want me out of here as soon as Thursday.  I can crawl up and down for a few days, but c'mon.

Now those of you who have sent me some magazines, hold up.  Those who are still sending subscriptions, God bless you, but make sure you send to the PO Box or PayPal.  God bless you all through this last travail .
That was the 23rd, so hopefully he'll be back at the homestead soon

Message from Texas to the UN

Damn right

"The 2nd Amendment? Which one is that?

Oh, we need to restrict that one.  What do you need that for, anyway?"
Frikkin' dirtbag politicians.


Student asks question of politician. Posts video of question and answer. School tries to screw student for daring to.
...her adviser insisted on a hasty meeting and explained that the YouTube posting had angered various Concordia bigwigs.

Engstrom’s adviser also told her that Concordia’s president, William Craft, had had already apologized to Peterson. The Concordia administration confirms the apology.

“President Craft spoke to Rep. Peterson and expressed regret concerning what Rep. Peterson experienced on campus,” Concordia spokesman Roger Degerman told The Daily Caller.

Engstrom’s adviser also told her that Concordia’s president had suggested that she could face disciplinary action from the school for her actions.
A: Can you say '1st Amendment Lawsuit'? I knew you could.
B: Bunch of arrogant dirtbag 'bigwigs' sucking up to a politician.
C: "How dare you, a lowly student, actually think you can ask a lordly politician questions!"  Etc.  Said bigwigs need to be retired.  Preferably involving a boot in the ass on their way out the door.

A 90-year-old Greenbrae man who was shot in the head during an alleged burglary has been sued by the alleged burglar.

Samuel Cutrufelli, who was also shot during the incident, claims Jay Leone "negligently shot" him during the confrontation inside Leone's home.
Etc. ad bullshit.  Dirtbags' lawyer is claiming it was a 'drug deal gone sideways'.  Wonder how the lawyer said that with a straight face?



One more reason so turn that building into a artificial reef:
The Washington Free Beacon has obtained a report soon to be released by the United Nations that calls for an international campaign of legal attacks and economic warfare on a group of American companies that do business in Israel, including Hewlett-Packard, Caterpillar Inc., and Motorola Solutions Inc. The UN wants warfare on American companies? I want fumigation of that building full of socialist cockroaches.

u

Well, yeah, this might explain just why we keep getting lies about Benghazi:
One of the places in Libya most awash with such weapons in the most dangerous of hands is Benghazi. It now appears that Stevens was there — on a particularly risky day, with no security to speak of and despite now copiously documented concerns about his own safety and that of his subordinates — for another priority mission: sending arms recovered from the former regime’s stocks to the “opposition” in Syria. As in Libya, the insurgents are known to include al Qaeda and other Shariah-supremacist groups, including none other than Abdelhakim Belhadj.

Fox News has chronicled how the Al Entisar, a Libyan-flagged vessel carrying 400 tons of cargo, docked on Sept. 6 in the Turkish port of Iskenderun. It reportedly supplied both humanitarian assistance and arms — including deadly SA-7 man-portable surface-to-air missiles — apparently destined for Islamists, again including al Qaeda elements, in Syria.

Oh, boy, I'll BET a bunch of people are on edge:

In the aftermath of Wednesday’s report of a tungsten filled 10 oz PAMP gold bar discovered in Manhattan, it appears we now have an epidemic on our hands, as the NY Post has just reported that a total of at least 10 tungsten filled gold bars have now been discovered in Manhattan.

The NY Post reports:
The Post has learned as many as 10 fake gold bars — made up mostly of relatively worthless tungsten — were sold recently to unsuspecting dealers in Manhattan’s Midtown Diamond District.

The price of gold has risen more than 600 percent since January 2000, while the S&P 500 index is down 0.6 percent over the same period.

The 10-oz. gold bars are hugely popular with Main Street investors, and it is not known how many of the fake gold bars were sold to dealers — or if any fake bars were purchased by the public.


And
An Australian mint has called in the Federal Police after being shown evidence by Seven News that its gold bars are being counterfeited.
The investigation uncovered Chinese 'forgery factories' that will churn out fake bullion and even Australian coins, for a fraction of their face value.

I wonder how many people are nervously studying their shiny investment right now?

Some people who could use a hand

Relaying this along:

"A friend attended the memorial service for former SEAL Ty Woods who was killed in Libya.  He left a wife and a newborn he had not met.  It was announced at the funeral that donations for the benefit of his family can be sent to the Ty Woods Memorial Account, c/o The Irving Group, 4320 La Jolla Village Drive, San Diego, CA 92122."

Oh, THAT voter fraud!

When approached by an undercover investigator for advice on how to steal the votes of more than 100 people, Moran advised falsifying documents to satisfy Virginia’s new voter ID law. He said, “Bank statement obviously would be tough, but they can fake a utility bill with ease.”

Moran went on to clarify that, “You’d have to forge it.”
That's Rep. Jim Moran's(NSD-VA) son and campaign manager giving advice on how to steal votes.

Ah, he's resigned. Now the question is, will he be prosecuted?

'Protest gone bad' my ass; they knew, and kept lying

over and over:

Officials at the White House and State Department were advised two hours after attackers assaulted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 that an Islamic militant group had claimed credit for the attack, official emails show.

The emails, obtained by Reuters from government sources not connected with U.S. spy agencies or the State Department and who requested anonymity, specifically mention that the Libyan group called Ansar al-Sharia had asserted responsibility for the attacks.
So President Lightworker- without question- KNEW very quickly that this was an attack by a terrorist group.  Knew very quickly that it was a planned attack.  And lied.

And kept lying.  He and Hillary and all their minions.

Draw a Venn diagram.  On one side, 'Professionals disgusted with what's been happening'.  On the other, 'I'm NOT going to sit here and be blamed for this crap!'
I think there's a BIG overlap in this diagram.  And they're getting this stuff out.

It's so nice when things actually work...

That  audio I mentioned the other day?  That was to compare 'Before' and 'After' of a bit of exhaust work on my bike. 

I like the bike.  And I hate ear-hurting loud 'mufflers' and straight pipes*.  But I missed the nice, deep rumble of the Vulcan I used to ride.  So when I ran across this a while back, I decided to try it.  Finally found a used muffler assembly to use(yeah, I wanted to be able to fall back to the originals if this didn't work out) and did the work.  Installed it this morning.  Original sound, well, has been likened to a sewing machine.  Here's modified:

Not actually loud, just a little more volume than the original; but now it has that throaty rumble I missed.  Riding around town a bit, at normal RPM levels, I can honestly say that I can now actually hear the exhaust, where before I mostly heard the engine sounds and the tires on the pavement**.

I think I like it.


*And I friggin' hate those little cars with mufflers that make them sound like a asthmatic chainsaw.
**An effect of the fairing, I think

Mr. Hockey-stick Graph has filed suit; UPDATED

if he doesn't drop it before discovery, he's a bleeping fool

Update:
Oh my, this is just so frikkin'.... I'm not sure of the proper descriptive for this:
 ...he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for having “created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming.”
Arrogant?  Stupid?  Both?  Maybe a bit of desperate thrown in?

Over at Coalition of the Swilling,

Firehand says: He also seems to think that all the Navy needs is a few carriers and subs. Does he realize at all that carriers travel with escorts?
That subs aren’t very good a chasing pirates?
Or keeping sea lanes open?
Or that moving troops requires other ships?
Let’s pass on the supply ships, oilers and such for now.
He really doesn’t seem to understand this crap at all, does he?

Mr. Bingley says:

Firehand, I’m pretty sure he only knows that the Secret Service travels with escorts.

Jeez, the advances...

Working on some things(story later) and decided I wanted to record some sound effects.  The camera takes video as well as stills, but for just audio I used my mp3 player(this one, bought a little over a year ago), which includes a voice recorder.
That makes amazingly good recordings.
As well as playing music.
And playing video.
And has a FM radio.
Of course, it only has 4gb of storage.[/sarcasm]
And it cost less than $40, with shipping.

I got curious and checked, the newer model has 8gb.  And a bigger screen.
And costs a whole ten bucks more than the old model(also a referb).

Friggin' amazing.

Oh, sweet Deity-of-your-choice,

are these people simply ignorant, or flat stupid?

It does not require a degree in economics to know that just printing a bill doesn't mean it's worth squat.  Except in DU land, apparently.

"Has nothing to do with health(and don't ask about that),

we just want something faster(with very high error rates, but don't ask about that either) to reduce our molestatio- er, manual exam rate!"


Found over at Uncle

Haven't hunted in quite a while, but my trapping skills

haven't atrophied:  FOUR of the little grey bastards, in 24 hours!

Tab clearing

I've seen these error analysis targets before; handy things.


Great; another reason why it's so hard to actually do anything about bad cops.


A repeat of Obama's "Here's what I'd like to do" about personal disarmament:
...Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced. But part of it is also looking at other sources of the violence. Because frankly, in my home town of Chicago, there’s an awful lot of violence and they’re not using AK-47s. They’re using cheap hand guns.
Obama not only attacked the best-selling and most widely distributed firearms in the United States, he also obliquely suggested he wants to disarm the poor.
 AND everyone else; it's just easier to start on the poor.  A community organizer would know that, too.


Chris Matthews either can't stop trying to sell the crap story, or his brain won't accept people knowing Obama lied(and people died).

Over in (formerly Great)Britain, they're getting more

of what they tolerate.
A pregnant teaching assistant battered a man with her stiletto heel during a late night gang attack on the stranger outside a bar.
...
The court heard she ‘wound up’ four or five unidentified thugs who followed the victim, knocked him to the ground and savagely kicked and stamped on him outside Baa Bar on Wilmslow Road, Fallowfield.

Armstrong appeared to be the ‘instigator’ of the 2.30am attack in April last year, witnesses said, even though she didn’t know Mr Kelly.
Why do I say 'what they tolerate'?
Joanne Armstrong, aged 28, avoided jail after admitting repeatedly hitting Sean Kelly in the face with her shoe as he lay helpless on the pavement.
Because 'she was a good teaching assistant, this was an abberation', etc.  Insert chorus of "He's a good boy!  He goes to church!  He didn't mean to kill that woman!"  In fact,
...she got ‘very drunk’ before becoming ‘embroiled’ in one of a number of violent incidents unfolding at closing time, the court heard.

Miss Hall said: ‘There’s no indication that she takes anything other than the view that this was utterly unacceptable behaviour. It was an isolated incident from a lady who was of very good character.’
Sound of tens of generations of mothers and priests and fathers who taught kids what 'good character' actually meant rotating in their graves.

One last note:
Judge Michael Henshell, who sentenced Armstrong to an eight-month suspended jail sentence, labelled her behaviour as a ‘typical scene’ in Manchester witnessed every night of the week.
To borrow a phrase,


Related:  God, this is awful.

Because if they make everything a 'disease' or 'condition',

it gives them a lever to use against you.


I bitch about the weather weenies, and occasionally hint at vile deeds being committed upon them when the blow a forecast; the Italians have decided to take that and run it to the idiotic extreme:

An Italian court convicted seven scientists and experts of manslaughter on Monday for failing to adequately warn citizens before an earthquake struck central Italy in 2009, killing more than 300 people.
...
The defendants were accused in the indictment of giving `'inexact, incomplete and contradictory information" about whether small tremors felt by L'Aquila residents in the weeks and months before the April 6, 2009, quake should have constituted grounds for a quake warning.
In further news, the courts are planning for the future trials of doctors who don't realize the patient with the flu is actually the Antichrist, and vulcanologists who  fail to predict the minor eruption that broke their grandmothers' prized vase.

"[T]o claim that Indians lived without affecting nature

is akin to saying that they lived without touching anything, that they were a people without history. Indians often manipulated their local environments, and while they usually had far less impact on their environments than European colonists would, the idea of 'preserving' land in some kind of wilderness state would have struck them as impractical and absurd. More often than not, Indians profoundly shaped the ecosystemsaround them."
Just my way of annoying all the right people on a Monday morning.


Speaking of annoying, oh, this is REALLY gonna do it:
70 members of the French youth group Génération Identitaire occupied the Poiters mosque on Saturday to protest against the influence of Islam in France.  The youths climbed to the roof and unfurled a banner with the name of their movement.

The youth activists displayed a number of banners including one that read, “Charles Martel beat the Arabs at Poitiers in 732,” in reference to a battle credited with stopping the advance of Islam into western Europe. That was 1300 years ago.
 And yeah, they're using the lambda as their symbol, as promised.

Just to take the bad taste out of my brain

Added for those steampunk inclined:

Also known, as ladyfriend commented, "He wears more mascara than I do!"

To borrow a phrase and embroider, "Go piss on a transformer,

asshole."
Colin Perkel of The Canadian Press reported Emmerson’s remarks from a symposium in Toronto on the impact of 9/11 on human rights: 

"The re-introduction of torture under a Romney administration would significantly increase the threat levels to (Americans) at home and abroad," Emmerson said. 
"Such a policy, if adopted, would expose the American people to risks the Obama administration is not currently exposing them to."

Which reminds me of the morons insisting we must severely punish troops who relieve themselves on deceased child-molesting terrorists or burn defaced books because "If we don't it will endanger our troops."  Yeah, like that's going to 'endanger' them if they're captured by seventh-century goat-humpers who regularly torture people to death and booby-trap the bodies.  Yeah.  We have to avoid giving the savages offense.*

Which does not even touch on the level of "You can kiss my ass" generated by some Deity-cursed would-be-more-useful-shoveling-shit-in-a-fertilizer-factory jerk from the UN trying to tell us who to vote for.

I have come to the view that Lawdogs' is the proper method of dealing with that conglomeration of socialist tyrant wannabes:
Since I like to copper my bets, I'd draw an advance on my first months paycheck, buy a truckload of dynamite and order the Commandant of the Marine Corp to de-infestate the UN building.

While the Marines are chucking UN politicos off the pier, I'd be personally setting charges in the UN basement.


However, that was before I took note of this egregious piece of bullshit:
United Nations-affiliated election monitors from Europe and central Asia will be at polling places around the U.S. looking for voter suppression activities by conservative groups, a concern raised by civil rights groups during a meeting this week. The intervention has drawn criticism from a prominent conservative-leaning group combating election fraud.
 Dear UN:
Considering that you have managed to happily certify and cheer the crooked election of every genocidal, corrupt, and 'one man, one vote, one time' dirtbag who managed to steal a country- and you danced and cheered and offered to blow them if they were proper socialists- the idea of you 'monitoring' our elections to prevent fraud is about as comforting as having some of your average 'peacekeepers' offer to operate a child-care center. 

Further, the idea of
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP and the ACLU, among other groups
 hereafter known as the "We hate the idea of required voter ID because it hinders us in committing vote fraud coalition",
whining to the fucking UN to 'ensure fair elections' would be laughable; except that the UN and every one of these corrupt clown posse members have shown that you all would really like to destroy the US as a republic, and seem willing to do anything to accomplish that.

Including screw with our elections.

Therefore, I am proposing to the next administration of the United States that Lawdog be appointed(for a short term; he's a busy man and it won't take long) Interior Secretary for the period necessary to collapse that wretched hive of scum and villainy on Turtle Bay into Turtle Bay.

I'm willing to go along with him allowing sufficient time for every UN ambassador and his collection of minions, thieves, rapists and parking-fine evaders to evacuate the country first; but it's not a dealbreaker if he doesn't.  After all, the harbor is already polluted, and the birds, crabs and fish probably wouldn't take too long to clean up most of the bits.

Sincerely,
Firehand
aka One Of The People You've Pissed Off



 *Ignore that the only thing that WON'T give the savages offense is our deaths

Opening line borrowed from Tam