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I don't understand. Who is Gibbs?

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Wednesday, May 21, 2025 - 02:44 pm: Edit

I think the reference is to Supervisory Special Agent Gibbs from the TV show NCIS.

--Mike

By Alan Trevor (Thyrm) on Wednesday, May 21, 2025 - 02:52 pm: Edit

Ahh...

I haven't watched much TV for years, decades even.

I never watched Breaking Bad, or The Sopranos, or Game of Thrones, or...

Even though I have it on good authority that these were all excellent shows, I just haven't been interested.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Wednesday, May 21, 2025 - 10:47 pm: Edit

N.C.I.S. Is a crime procedural television program detailing cases of the Naval criminal Investigative Service, whose area of specialty is investigating crimes concerning Navy, Marine personnel.

It was a spinoff of a very successful television series called JAg(Judge Advocate General) which concern the navy’s lawyers cases.

Since the news story above concerns the new Secretary of the Navy, I just figured many people would make the connection.

Sorry!

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, May 22, 2025 - 09:22 am: Edit

Gibbs?

Last I heard, there was a probationary officer by that name back in the early '90s, from before the "C" was added to "NCIS".

He seemed to have some anger management issues, however. I wonder if his law enforcement career ever amounted to anything...

-----

I did hear that the Service has a field office Down Under nowadays.

Although there seems to be conflicting data, in terms of exactly which part of the Commonwealth of Australia they happen to be stationed in.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, May 22, 2025 - 12:57 pm: Edit

Better be in a place near a Marine or Naval base!

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Thursday, May 22, 2025 - 06:38 pm: Edit

I'm told that NCIS (TV version) has an office in Los Angeles. Which is odd, since I very very strongly suspect that if they need an NCIS team in LA, the solution is to call San Diego and ask one to come up to LA.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Friday, May 23, 2025 - 04:54 pm: Edit

The office in L.A. is more like a CIA Satellite Office instead of a Law Enforcement team.....

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, June 01, 2025 - 07:32 pm: Edit

I just figured out that history is much harder for kids to learn these days because there's fifty more years of stuff that happened since I was in school.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Sunday, June 01, 2025 - 11:35 pm: Edit

Just tell the kids that the last fifty years of history won’t be on the exam!

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Thursday, June 05, 2025 - 12:36 am: Edit

June fourth.

Maybe it's just me, but every year on this day, I think about the Battle of Midway and the state of the fleet, then I think about June of '44, when we had the D-Day landings, the Dragoon landings, and the Marianas Turkey Shoot, and I try to wrap my head around the sheer quantity of production and production ramp-up over a very brief two year period. Kinda boggles my (alleged) mind.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, July 04, 2025 - 06:27 pm: Edit

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Happy Independence Day, folks!

By Eddie E Crutchfield (Librarian101) on Friday, July 04, 2025 - 06:58 pm: Edit

Thanks Jessica, Happy 4th all

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Friday, July 04, 2025 - 10:53 pm: Edit

I think the best movie on this is the scene from HBO's John Adams. After the vote passes to declare Independence the camera pans over the silent delegates all with the look of "What have we done? If this doesn't work we've all just signed our death warrants."

Powerful scene.

Voting for Independence

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Saturday, July 05, 2025 - 01:16 am: Edit

Watching that video reminded me the reason for the Swedish national holiday that they recently put in place (and few had asked for); the day Gustav Wasa was crowned king.
Sure, he had defeated the Danish and become the founder/uniter of the Swedish nation, but still it is a totally different story to yours.
Oh, btw the proper Swedish national day is the Midsummer eve feast.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Saturday, July 12, 2025 - 10:16 am: Edit

At the end of our vacation this week, my father sent me home with a sizeable box of various things he wanted me to have. Among them was a letter from my great-uncle to my grandfather in 1943 from China, where he was fighting (while formally part of an "observation and support" force, the reality is that they wound up in the fight). Within the letter he enclosed two square inches from the wing of a Mitsubishi A6M Zero that had been shot down nearly on top of his unit.