Well, yesterday we pampered the dogs so it seemed fair to do something for ourselves today. Now, Damsel likes girly stuff, so I usually get her some nice flowers for the house every week. She is particularly fond of Asian Stargazer Lilies, so they show up often. She also likes her new SW686 revolver, so we went to the indoor range and squeezed off a few rounds. That’s my Damsel — Guns ‘n’ Gazers!
This Day Just Went to the Dogs
Got up early, took the dogs to get baths and inoculations, came home, swept up all the dog hair (they shed a lot in the summer), fixed the broken floor in the doghouse, went after the dogs and then home to fix our Saturday Dinner. Busy, busy, busy. At least the pups don’t look like they have leprosy from shedding anymore.
Monkeys On Their Back
The freedom of speech of Sheehan, Murtha, most of the media and all Islamic “protection” groups (ACLU, CAIR, etc.) to speak out are protected by the very same military they weigh down with their insane rantings. They just don’t get it!
Cox & Forkum see it the same way:
Car Thieves and Illegal Aliens
This is an interesting story. It seems that a local syndicate of thieves in conjunction with Central American criminals have been busy stealing over 200 high-end vehicles.
The key figures in this (literally) are a GM dealership employee and a locksmith accomplice. Gang members would scout out a likely vehicle. They would read the vehicle ID number through the windshield and forward it to the GM guy, who would then look up the VIN on GMs computer and identify the key and codes for that particular vehicle.
Then the illegal alien thieves would be given the keys and remotes so they could drive the vehicle to a cooling off location — that is a place to abandon the vehicle temporarily in case a tracking device would lead police to the vehicle. Those that weren’t “hot” were then fitted with phony VIN tags and sold at liquidation prices.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca had this to say about the illegals:
“This is a very big, international auto-theft ring,” [Sheriff Lee] Baca said. “What makes this case unusual is that four of the main suspects have been arrested in the past for this very same crime.
“They are nationals from (Central American) countries. They were deported after their previous crimes occurred and they were convicted … and here they are, back in the United States, back in Southern California, doing the very same thing.”
Deported? And they’re back already doing the same thing? This is a clear demonstration of just how lame our border enforcement has been in the past and will continue to be if we don’t get a border security policy that works.
Tip of the Iceberg
This may only be the first of a series of revelations of previously classified data. Why it takes this long for these vital facts to emerge is anyone’s guess. One might expect the administration would have a stake in disseminating this information and make it public. Why they have not done this, is also a mystery.
From Fox News:
Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq
WASHINGTON — The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers [Congressman Pete Hoekstra and Senator Rick Santorum] said Wednesday.
“We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons,” Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon. Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: “Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.”
Image: Congressman Pete Hoekstra and Senator Rick Santorum – Courtesy Fox News
Non-MSM News from Iraq
In the wake of the recent torture and deaths of PFC Kristian Menchaca and PFC Thomas L. Tucker, there will be a dearth of any encouraging news from Iraq. We feel it is important to forward some of this news when the MSM ignores it. For instance this post about events on June 19th in Iraq from CENTCOM depicts some positive coalition activities:
COALITION FORCES KILL 15 TERRORISTS, DETAIN THREE OTHERS
Coalition forces came under immediate small arms fire from a rooftop upon arrival to the objective area. The ground force returned fire, killing nine armed terrorists on the rooftop, and an additional two armed terrorists who were identified firing on Coalition forces from next to the building, were killed by Coalition aircraft supporting fire.
Following this initial contact, Coalition forces found 10 AK-47 assault rifles, one shotgun, one pistol and a crate of explosives.
One supporting aircraft hit utility wires as they were engaging the armed terrorists. The aircraft was damaged and forced to make a controlled landing. There were no injuries to the crew and the ground force immediately secured the site. Three armed suspects were then killed by another Coalition aircraft as they attempted to attack the downed aircraft.
After securing the aircraft, Coalition forces moved to assault the building that several terrorists had fled to following the first contact. One terrorist was killed by a Coalition sniper as he attempted to engage the troops from the nearby rooftop.
The force cleared the buildings, detaining the three terrorists. The captured individuals, who fled earlier, were found hiding amidst nine women. None of the women were injured. One of the detained terrorists was wounded at the initial target building after he engaged Coalition forces.
The raids were targeting individuals associated with a suspected senior al-Qaida in Iraq network member targeted in previous Coalition operations.
The downed aircraft was recovered prior to all forces returning to base, and all weapons and explosives were destroyed on-site.
And the next news release:
COALITION FORCES DETAIN SENIOR AL-QAIDA IN IRAQ NETWORK MEMBER
Coalition forces detained a senior al-Qaida in Iraq network member and three suspected terrorists during coordinated raids southwest of Baqubah June 19.
The terrorist is reportedly a senior al-Qaida cell leader throughout central Iraq, north of Baghdad. He’s known to be involved in facilitating foreign terrorists throughout central Iraq, and is suspected of having ties to previous attacks on Coalition and Iraqi forces.
Coalition forces secured multiple buildings and detained the known terrorist plus three suspected terrorists without incident. Troops found an AK-47 with several magazines of ammunition and destroyed them all on site.
Several women and children were present at the raid sites. None were harmed and all were returned to their homes once the troops ensured the area was secure.
What these two items mean to the coalition is that they have weakened the enemy and have increased the possibility of recovering intelligence regarding the enemy’s intentions and composition. All good things.
We feel the grief of the families of those tortured soldiers and share the avenging spirit that must be in the hearts of the rest of the soldiers as they continue their campaign in Iraq. That being said, the overall scorecard since the death of Al Zarqawi has been overwhelmingly in the favor of the coalition:
Coalition: hundreds of captures and kills — Al Qaida in Iraq: a handful of casualties and two atrocities.
But AQI gets support from the Associated Press, Reuters and much of the MSM due to their heavily-biased reporting.
UPDATE: A good resource for breaking news out of CENTCOM may be found on their press release website.
Server Problems
Our Internet Service Provider (ISP) is in the throes of upgrading their MySQL Server this week. I have been advised that the one currently in service is experiencing high demands on it’s capabilities and often will be slow to respond. This supposedly will be resolved by Thursday, 22 June 2006. Please be patient with occasional slow response times until then. Thanks.
UPDATE: Just got this from the ISP:
We have been experiencing some issues with MySQL performance. We
discovered a user with a packaged PHP program causing unusual load to
MySQL. Service to the offending account has been suspended and you
should no longer experience trouble.
Should be OK for now. They are still proceeding with installation of the new server.
UPDATE: Still seems to be some slowness in spite of the message.