Archive through October 24, 2024
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Non-Game Discussions: Real-World Military:
Archive through October 24, 2024
Probably why media over here said nothing about it. Whatever it is.
I love how they deny anything they don't like. Like driving laws, car registrations, insurance, etc. And of course how they scream like little schoolgirls when their windows get broken, and then they get dragged out, & cuffed. It's even better when a taser (50,000 volts of "Act-rite") is involved.
I'm going to tell the next cop I meet "I'm just travelling..." Then say "just kidding, here is my license, insurance and registration."
Mike, please do not do that, or inspire anyone else to. Cops in stressful situations tene to be annoyed by smart ass comments.
Israel is DNA testing the body of a terrorist thought to be Hamas military commander Yahyah Sinwahr.
Having worked with many LEOs in years gone by, I'd strongly recommend, particularly at the beginning of a traffic stop, to be very deliberately calm, clearly communicative, and cooperative.
The LEO doesn't know when a car is stopped who is behind the wheel, who else might be in the car, what weapons are present, or who may be on what substance. It's incredibly dangerous. And bear in mind in almost all municipalities that there is only 1 LEO in the cruiser. So the LEO doesn't even have a partner to help as was the case in decades gone by.
--Mike
I got stopped three times on one day by LEO’s, two city jurisdictions, one, a State police officer on an interstate highway.
Turns out, I was in a town that had a hold up/robbery at the same approximate time that I was having my car serviced / oil change.
As it turned out, I didn’t even make it out of the parking lot of the Ford dealership that I had bought the car, and was having the service done. A LEO spotted the car in the parking lot, and called for back up.
Fortunately, the service department has security surveillance of both the service area and the customer waiting area, with time stamped video.
The suspect they were looking for was tall 6’4”, skinny, individual wearing black leather jacket, large fluffy head of hair, and a minority member of the community in his twenties.
For the record, I am a short, old (65 years old), obese white guy, bald, who wears classes and not particularly athletic.
Still, the officer wasn’t convinced until The dealership showed him video of me sitting in the waiting room watching fox news for almost an hour waiting for my car to be serviced.
Turns out, the crime suspect drove an identical car to me, same model, year, make and color, snd the license plates had the same three letter prefix.
He let me go, after explaining why he and the other officer drew their weapons for what initially appeared to be a traffic stop.
Then after I was released, a State Trooper puled me over 7 1/2 miles south on the interstate for the same reason. And he was satisfied after verifying with the police department that made the first stop.
That took twenty minutes.
Finally, a police officer from my town puled me over, without the lights or the siren. He seemed amused by my story, but still called
It in.
Busy day. I don’t know if they ever did find the suspect.
I've been stopped and held at gunpoint by law enforcement as well. Once.
Picked up a load in Del Rio, down on the border, and was headed up to Wisconsin with it. Was driving through a construction zone and had to "Thread the Needle" for several miles. On the right, there was a soft shoulder. On the left, there was an open trench. Had about six inches of wiggle room, no more.
Yeah. THAT sort of "Threading the Needle..." 
Anyhootch, I had the alarm go off on the truck computer saying I had a critically important message coming in from Headquarters. Caught me so off guard, and it was so loud, that if I hadn't been wearing my seatbelt, I probably would have put a dent in the roof of the cab.
The buzzing noise with it was annoying as is possible.
Well, every thirty seconds or so, that loud, annoying buzz would chime up again, so I REALLY wanted to take the message and SHUT IT UP!!
Finally, after some ten miles of that garbage, I finally reached the end of the construction zone. Blessed relief! I could FINALLY answer that problem!
I also saw more cones up ahead. Great, I though, another construction zone...
So, I pulled off onto the shoulder, turned on my four-way hazard blinkers, and initiated the log-on procedure for the (expletive deleted) computer. Sign in. Password. Link up...
... Aaand waited for it to download the message.
Okay, all fine and good. Finally, I was about to see what it was, when a voice barked at me from outside the truck. "FREEZE!! OUT OF THE TRUCK!! I.N.S.!!!"
Those cones I saw up ahead in the road? They weren't for another construction zone, they were for an immigration checkpoint.
What did those agents think I was doing there...
Yeah. Well, I was shocked by the whole thing, and when they barked, I jumped again, spun, and saw the service pistol of the closest agent, the one with the loud bark, pointed straight at my nose. Sure, it was only nine millimeter, but pointed straight at my schnozz, it looked more like twenty.
Before you ask, yes, I ABSOLUTELY cooperated with them!!
Well, before they were done making sure I wasn't letting off anyone in the country illegally, they tore the truck apart. The only way they could have been more thorough would have been for one of them to put on the rubber glove and have me bend over.
Took the better part of an hour, especially with them having to open up my trailer and go through my entire payload.
Oh, and to top it all off, that message? The one that could have gotten me filled so full of lead that I'd have been nothing more than a human pencil?
"A happy driver is a productive driver!"
...
I was NOT a happy driver.
The reply I sent to them over the whole thing was filled with enough colorful adjectives and adverbs that I felt like washing my hands off with soap for having typed it...
In the end, though, I got out of everything okay, and have an amusing story for people, most of whom seem to enjoy my retelling it. As far as law enforcement people go, whenever I run in to them out on the streets, I usually greet them with, "May you have a boring day," which they almost always appreciate.
Hope the story gives some of y'all a chuckle too!
I was driving way too fast on the highway 70 miles south of Amarillo one day 40 plus years ago. I looked up to see lights and siren closing in. So I pulled over to take my medicine. The officer pulled up behind me, and got out of car. He approached my open window with his hand on his pistol, looked into the window at me, said "You're not him!", ran back to his car, pulled out, and drove away at very high speed, lights and siren still going. I drove on at the speed limit and avoided speeding from that day to this.
I was driving to San Augustine on the back roads (around 1999 or so), flying along at 80 mph when my radar detector goes off. I stand on the brakes, go over the hill and there is a local sheriff.
I sedately cruise by him at around 30. He lights up the cherries and berries and pulls me over.
His first question "do you know how fast you were going?" Me "I don't know exactly, I was just cruising along." Him "you got anything in the trunk?" Me "Nothing of interest, you wanna look?" Yes he does. Nothing there. So as we are now pals he asks me "What kind of car is that, I ain't never seen one before?" I say "It's an Acura Legend, kind of like a Japanese BMW." He says, "none of them around here. You be careful."
I'm convinced that he pulled me over because he didn't know what kind of car it was. Miss that silver beast; it would cruise all day at 100 mph on I10 with the AC on and get almost 30 mpg.
A U.K. Media site posted a story two days ago, the gist of which was that the death of Yahya Sinwar was an accidental event.
The (at the time) new head of Hamas was walking on a public street with his two bodyguards, on his way to his residence.
As it happened, the three men came upon a IDF patrol, and reports vary, but apparently one of the bodyguards opened fire on the Israeli soldiers.
The point being, the IDF soldiers did not know the identity of Sinwar at the time of the incident.
Looks like Hamas can’t catch a break.
In'Shallah
A Hezbollah drone hit the home(house) of Israeli PM Netanyahu, but he wasn't there and the armored home wasn't damaged beyond some armored glass that will have to be replaced.
The US had the complete plan for the Israeli assault on Iran but it leaked to the media, which of course caused the plan to be cancelled. The question now is was it leaked by someone who was anti-Israel, or by someone who wanted to prevent escalation, by the the Biden Administration (i.e., Obama) who wants Israel to do what it is told.
Almost a hundred Hamas fighters surrendered in one area of Gaza.
Hamas leaders said they would give up power but not their weapons or hostages.
At the current rate of attrition, one could argue that ANYTHING currently living Hamas leaders want, will shortly become moot, with the death of said leaders.
The attacks of October, 7, 2023 literally gave Israel just cause to practice open hunting season on everything connected with Hamas.
The fact that the Israelis are still recovering living hostages and the bodies of deceased hostages allows the families some measure of closure.
The fact that Hamas fighters choose to surrender rather than die fighting may signal that Hamas as a going concern is in a death spiral.
At some point, no one will accept a leadership position in Hamas, unless, that is, they have a death wish
If we learned nothing else from our two decades of fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban, Jswile, it is that there are always those with the particular combination of both fanaticism and fatalism willing to fill leadership positions that have been terminally vacated.
Again, there is a difference:
Israel hasn’t let up on Hamas, in fact, relentless hunt might be more accurate.
Hard to talk about the alternative with out violating the no politics rule, but if your goal is to eliminate terrorism, paying the terrorist organization and sponsors with pallets of cash to the tune of millions of dollars is probably not the best possible method.
(Note:both Republican and Democrat administrations used cash payments as part of their policy. The difference was republicans tried retail, democrats tried whole sale by paying the terrorist state directly.)
Neither strategy worked.
Or
Trading arms for hostages.
Negotiating a deal that allows all the terrorists captured so far to go free without a plan thereafter.
The only true solution to terrorism is to kill them all and make it so that no one is willing to take up their cause.
Examples include the Red Army in Germany & November 17 in Greece.
Mike: Red Army Faction in Germany faded out in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union (and the Soviet sponsors of RAF in East Germany); November 17 in Greece trailed off a few years later for much the same reason. Neither ever had active membership above a few dozen each.
In comparison, Hamas is estimated to have in the vicinity of 20,000 fighters; Hezbollah is estimated to have about twice that.
Jswile: the United States did not attempt a "pallet of money" action with either al Qaeda or the Taliban (under either Republican or Democratic administrations). I realize you may be referencing Iran, to which I would reply that Iran positively loathes and is in more-or-less constant conflict with both al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Which American party support terrorist the most? Seriously, talk about literally wanting to look at history through tinted glasses.
>> The only true solution to terrorism is to kill them all and make it so that no one is willing to take up their cause.
My sense is the solution is often to hinder or prevent the state sponsors of terrorism from delivering support to their favored terrorist group. Lacking nation-level support, terrorists will simply be unable to grow very large or do that much damage over time.
--Mike
JessicaOrsini:
You need to look up the definition of retail vs whole sale.
The Republicans most certainly did send pallets of money to Afghanistan and Iraq. Not to pay off warlords or mullahs in or out of Iran… but to distribute cash at the level of individuals in an attempt to buy off individuals.
As I stated earlier, it failed.
Now, you can choose to interpret it as a partisan attack, But I did not mean it that way.
Lets be charitable and just say that it was a bad idea, but no one came up with a better one, so there it is.
It would be nice if people actually learned from all of these mistakes, but there is no evidence that I have seen to support that hope.
I need do no such thing, as those were not payments to al Qaeda or the Taliban. Maybe you like to play with shifting goalposts, sir, but I do not.
Stop. Moving your own goal posts.
Nor did I specify payments to al Qaeda or the Taliban, you did.
I merely pointed out that both Republicans and democrats attempted to use cash as a policy tool.
You determined that payments went to al Qaeda and Taliban
The difference, since you seem to have missed the point, is Democrats used skid loaders and fork lifts, republican spending was smaller denominations paid for services to indigenous peoples.
My friends, whenever the terms "Republican" and "Democrat" are presented, I believe a couple alligators hear dinner bells...
Jswile: Oh, I recall when literal pallets of cash were sent to Iraq. I also remember who was squirming in the hot seat in front of the House Committee on Government Reform as he tried to explain 363 tons (yes, tons) of shrink-wrapped, palletized $100 bills that he had flown to Bagdad. It was L. Paul Bremer, former administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, and the year was 2007 (Tuesday, 6 Feb 2007, to be precise).
As for your partisan commentary: I get that you are on a near-constant quest here to twist any topic of discussion for use as a bludgeon to be wielded for partisan purposes; it's not like you're subtle about it, no matter how many warnings you may receive.
Jessica Orsini:
You are welcome to your opinions, but your facts are not exactly as you are trying to portray them. and yes, the the amount of currency dispensed in Iraq was large. Unfortunately, for you, in this case, you are trying intentionally to obfuscate the meaning.
What you have failed at, is understanding the distinction of pallets of cash delivered to the mullah s in Iran in mass, and the amount of cash distributed in smaller amounts to individuals and businesses.
The goal of the Republican Administration was to “win the hearts and minds” of the people in Iraq using cash as an incentive to changing opinion (and, it was to be hoped, opposition to the American military presence in Iraq.)
The apparent goal of the Democratic Administrations, was to influence the Iranian government into modifying its policy of supporting terrorism.
With the benefit of hindsight, it is obvious that paying off the mullahs policy failed in achieving the stated goal.
Unless the goal was to allow the Mullahs to support terrorism in a campaign to destroy Israel, which might be plausible given other actions by the most anti-Israel president the US ever had.
Allie loves jets. She says it makes feet taste better--all cleaned and slightly boiled.
Therefore, Jeff, I need you to cool your jets. I think if you do, then Jessica will also.
Jean
WebMom
(who is trying to keep Allie from overeating on slightly boiled, clean feet)
I don't now if this is approrpriate. It's personal, but heavy, so apologies.
I am Gentile. I have a number of Jewish friends some of whome's families were involved in the October 7th massacre. But... The thing that has struck me, affected me on a deep basis, is how many people I know, who I worked with, not just normal jobs but volunteer civil rights work, have embraced the worst, the most terrible antisemitic tropes, things that wouldn't have been out of place in early 1930s Germany. Today, one of my oldest friend's daughter returned from school, and she'll be attending another school because she doesn't feel safe.
I've lived in this nation all my life. I love this nation. But I don't know if I'll ever really recover from hearing all the spite and vitrol that poured forth from people I thought I knew. We joke about pruning our social media and friends, but I've lost people I would have trusted with my life before a year ago, and I'm feeling alone and sad.
For what it's worth, Charles, I've spoken with multiple friends who are Jewish and have experienced such intense anti-semitism that they have changed jobs or schools to be in what they feel is a safer situation. And this is here in the US in 2024. It's shocking to me.
--Mike
Charles,
Whilst I've made no secret about my misgivings in regard to the Likud government, I've been dismayed at the number of Americans who -- for whatever reason -- have opted to lump all Jewish people in with that government in their disapproval thereof, and who have all too often adopted a raft of antisemitic tropes along the way without so much as batting an eye.
We are living in dreadfully polarized times (and not only in the United States, as this has been cropping up in the U.K. and elsewhere as well), and one of the more unfortunate effects of polarization is widespread adaptation of black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking.
- Jess
We've all felt the impact of this, Charles. Thank you for sharing your heartache with us. I hope we, as a nation, will come to our senses and go back to standing up for innocent people of all faiths and backgrounds.
My sister-in-law comes from a Persian Jewish family. They had to leave Iran when the Shah fell, so even though she was quite young at the time, she has borne witness to the persecution.
Lately, she's not felt safe, due to the rise of anti-Semitism here in the `States, but due to her fringe political beliefs, she's surrounded herself with those on her extreme side of the political aisle, and in doing so, she's also surrounded herself (and her two kids) with the same anti-Semitism that so frightens her.
Of course, she does say that it's the other side of the political aisle (which, by the way, is MY side of the aisle) that's the source of the anti-Semitism that is frightening her, and she won't hear anything outside of her skewed world view.
Webmom? I have deliberately NOT said which party/side of the political aisle the two of us are on, but am aware this might still be in `GatorChomp territory. If so, I do apologize, and please feel free to delete it as inappropriate.
The terrorists just have better PR departments and lie without shame. Independent journalists would be killed if they didn't report the "Party line" required by the terrorists.
So every dead terrorist is a woman or child when they report on things, every bomb is a international war crime, every human shield killed an innocent martyr.
I am willing to concede that Israel isn't perfect, but they seem to be trying to avoid civilian casualties. But since the terrorists hide among them it's hard to hit one without hurting the others. Make no mistake, if Israel actually wanted to "Genocide" Gaza they have the military ability to do so.
If Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iran could genocide Israel they would do it in an instant. And that is the difference.
I continue to think that Israel needs to tell the world "Hamas and Hezbollah started these wars, and we will continue until they surrender. Did the US, USSR, and Great Britain stop when they were winning or did they see the war through?"
Charles My wife is Jewish by birth. While she does not follow Judaism. We follow a more basic Pagan lifestyle. There are members of her family that do practice their religion.
What hurts me worse in this country (USA). Is how people or so gullible to be taken in by the trash about other religious and racial groups.
In this country there is supposed to be separation of church and state. Anyone can follow and practice whatever religion they so choose. With out persecution by the state or other parties.
It burns me up that there are people protesting threatening another group of people based on their religious beliefs. Calling it freedom of speech. I do not understand the hatred that people have for each other like this.
It is as if we cannot learn as a nation are as human beings from history.
All I can say is I feel your pain.