The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Rule 5 Sunday: Sydney Melman

Posted on | April 11, 2022 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Sydney Melman

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Continuing AustraliaSydney month at Rule 5 Sunday…no, just kidding. Sydney Melman is a Jersey girl, born in 2001, who had a brief movie career in Babysitters and Out Of The Darkness before modeling on Instagram, TikTok, and her own subreddit. Reminds me of Karen Black.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

NINETY MILES FROM TYRANNY: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1680, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five Line Of Succession Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon. 

EBL: MAGA – Trump Beats DeBlasio, Una O’Keefe, Catherine The Great, Doris Day, Les Paul & Mary Ford, Death On The Nile, CongressCritters, Aleksandr Nevskii, Amber Athey, The Outlaws, and Red Dawn. 

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Alysson Holt, Fish Pic Friday – Nina Rogers, Tattoo Thursday, Kate Upton’s Uncle Is Out, Ivanka Trump Is Up, The Wednesday Wetness, KBJ Makes it to the Floor, The Witch of the North, Go Get ‘Em!, The Monday Morning Stimulus and Palm Sunday.

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: My Name Is Ruin

Posted on | April 11, 2022 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: My Name Is Ruin

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Haven’t had time to do much this week except sleep, eat, do taxes, shave, rinse & repeat. Ten more days until I’m home in Tonopah and mongling links again.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Rule 5 Monday: The Best Rack In Hollywood?
Animal Magnetism
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive
Ninety Miles From Tyranny

Crazy People Are Dangerous
EBL
357 Magnum

Russian Invaders Retreat From Kyiv
The Pirate’s Cove
EBL

Taylor Lorenz Is a Dangerous Sociopath
Vulture Of Critique
EBL
357 Magnum

FMJRA 2.0: Shifting Through the Lens
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 04.04.22
EBL
Proof Positive

Probably Not a Trump Voter
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 04.05.22
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Unspeakable Atrocities in Ukraine
EBL
357 Magnum

‘Gun Violence’ Update
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 04.07.22
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

GO TEAM 41!
EBL
357 Magnum

 

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Category: FMJRA Award

Guess Who Went Viral at Best Ranger?

Posted on | April 10, 2022 | Comments Off on Guess Who Went Viral at Best Ranger?

FORT BENNING, GEORGIA
Haley Britzky is a reporter for the military web site Task & Purpose, and she happened to be at an event in Saturday’s Day Stakes rotations of Best Ranger Competition where Staff Sergeant McCain showed the meaning of the slogan “Improvise, Adapt, Overcome” and, at the same time, created a new motto: “You do you, baby”:

Haley’s tweet went viral in the military community, with nearly 3,000 likes and 600+ retweets, and the replies are “lit AF,” as the kids say:

At the heavy weapons Red Cloud Range event this afternoon, I happened to run into my son’s lieutenant colonel. When I introduced myself as Bob’s father, he said, “So you’re the original McCain,” and I said, “No, Bob is completely original,” to which he replied, “I 100% agree with that.”

Category: Family

Best Ranger: Surviving Day One

Posted on | April 9, 2022 | Comments Off on Best Ranger: Surviving Day One

Staff Sgt. McCain before the Darby Queen event.

FORT BENNING, GEORGIA
After the 19-mile night march, which ended after midnight, Team 41 was in 12th place in the 38th annual Best Ranger competition. The first day’s cut is at 28 teams, so our boys have survived to compete another day, beginning at 9 a.m. at Todd Field. Day One was a seesaw struggle. Team 41 started with a 33rd-place finish in the opening Workout-of-the Day event, but after completing the run-swim-run at Victory Pond followed by the Malvesti obstacle course, had moved up to 26th place.

They kept moving up, completing the Army Combat Fitness Test event in 22nd place. Team 41 really aced the Urban Assault Course event, moving up to 17th place, and the run to the Malone Ranges must have gone well, because they moved up to 15th place. This was a crucial point, because the second day’s cut is to 16 teams for the finals on Sunday, so making it to the top 15 halfway through Day One put Team 41 in good standing to make it all the way. The Pistol Range event didn’t go so good, and they dropped to 17th place, but they killed it in the Live Fire Exercise on Carter Ranger, moving all the way up to eighth place.

That was followed by the Malone Range Movements (another march, I think) with Team 41 dropping to ninth place, and then the Darby Queen obstacle course. This is an extraordinarily demanding event, and it was now 12 hours into a grueling day. Here’s video of the Darby Queen, not showing our team, but giving you some idea of what’s involved:

 

Team 41 survived this, too, but dropped to 10th place. Here they are at the finish line of the Darby Queen event:

You hear Bob’s little daughter Eliza shouting, “Daddy!” And then her Daddy had to put on a rucksack and do a 19-mile night march.

Category: Family

GO TEAM 41!

Posted on | April 8, 2022 | Comments Off on GO TEAM 41!

FORT BENNING, GEORGIA
The 38th Annual Best Ranger Competition kicks off this morning at 5:30 a.m., and I probably don’t have to explain why my wife and I are here cheering for Team 41. Staff Sergeant McCain and his partner, Sergeant First Class Peterson, will be among 51 teams competing in the three-day event that has been called the “Super Bowl of the Army.”

Last year, despite tearing his anterior cruciate ligament during the first day’s obstacle course event, Staff Sergeant McCain and his partner finished in 16th place, which is a heck of an accomplishment.

Probably the best way to follow the action is on the Facebook page of the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade. GO TEAM 41!

UPDATE: After the morning Workout-of-the-Day (WOD) event, Team 41 was in 33rd place. After the Malvesti Confidence Course events, they had moved up to 26th place. This is crucial, as the cut for the second day is to 32 teams (of the 51 who began the competition). Teams move up or down depending on their score in each event, so it’s good to have some “cushion” above the cut-off number. Of course, it would be nice to finish the first day in the top 16, because that’s the cut-off point for Day Three. We’ll see . . .

UPDATE II: Right after I posted the previous update, we got scores following the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) and Team 41 is now in 22nd place. So they’ve gained 11 spots since the first event.

Category: Family

In The Mailbox: 04.07.22

Posted on | April 7, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 04.07.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

I hate to say this, but I can’t keep this up. I’m putting in 11-hour days in the tax mines through the end of the season, and when I get back to the hotel, all I want to do is sleep. So this is going on hiatus until the 20th when I’m back in Tonopah. I think I’ll be able to manage the FMJRA and Rule 5 Sunday, since I only have to work until 6 PM on Sundays, but I don’t have the energy to manage the daily link posts.
Silicon Valley delenda est.


OVER THE TRANSOM
90 Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #1673
357 Magnum: He Spent 25 Years In Prison – The System Knew He Was Innocent
EBL: Mittens, Murky, & Collins, MAKE COURTROOMS GREAT AGAIN, and Disney, Democrats, & Systemic Grooming
Twitchy: Will Wilkinson Explains When It’s Okay For The Administration To “Simply Ignore” The Supreme Court
Louder With Crowder: Twitter Manager Has Epic Meltdown Over New Director Elon Musk
Vox Popoli: The Problem With Twitter, We Never Needed Them, and Just Post It To The Internet
Granite Grok: Thought Splinters Part II
Stoic Observations: The Stacks
Gab News: Thoughts On Elon & Twitter

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Category: Linkagery

‘Gun Violence’ Update

Posted on | April 6, 2022 | Comments Off on ‘Gun Violence’ Update

Yesterday we told you about the suspects arrested in the weekend massacre in Sacramento that killed six and wounded 12 others. Now there’s an important update to the story from Breitbart:

The Los Angeles Times admitted on Wednesday that Sunday’s Sacramento shooting was likely an exchange of gunfire between gang or street crime rivals rather than a “mass shooting.”
According to the Times, “[The incident] appears to be a result of a fight between rivals that caught bystanders in a crossfire of automatic and semi-automatic weapons fire.”
Although gun control was still mentioned by some local leaders and officeholders, the LA Times pointed out that Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg talked of “early intervention and gang prevention” on Tuesday.
US Magazine reported that pop duo Aly and AJ said their tour bus was caught in the crossfire during the Sacramento shooting. Crossfire is not indicative of a “mass shooting” but it is a characteristic of a shootout.
Three suspects have been arrested in connection with the shooting thus far.
The AP reported the first suspect arrested in connection with the Sacramento shooting was 26-year-old Dandrae Martin. He faces “charges of assault with a deadly weapon and being a convict carrying a loaded gun.”
Smiley Martin, the brother of Dandrae Martin, was also arrested. Breitbart News reported that Smiley was released early from prison in February despite District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert opposing the release.
The Sacramento Bee reported that Smiley was charged with “assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.”
A third suspect, 31-year-old Daviyonne Dawson, has also been arrested, according to KLVU. He, too, faces charges “of being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm.”
California already has more gun laws than any state in the Union, yet the focus has been on more gun control up to now. Labeling the Sacramento incident a shootout instead of a “mass shooting” places focus on things like policing, the atmosphere created by the defund the police movement, and judicial or parole board leniency toward violent criminals.




 

Category: California, Crime

Unspeakable Atrocities in Ukraine

Posted on | April 6, 2022 | Comments Off on Unspeakable Atrocities in Ukraine

In the days immediately after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, I was desperately seeking information on the tactical situation near Kyiv, but it was impossible to gather anything useful from the news accounts. Most journalists seem to know nothing about military tactics or strategy, and so the reports we were getting were mostly useless, if what you were trying to figure out was whether the Russians were succeeding in their (obvious) goal of encircling and capturing Ukraine’s capital.

The fight for control of the air field at Hostomel was clearly urgent. If Russian paratroopers could secure that as a base to fly in reinforcements, Kyiv was almost certainly doomed. By Saturday morning, Feb. 26, it was apparent that Kyiv was still hanging on, even while the fighting raged around the airport at Hostomel, about 15 miles away. What I didn’t know at the time — because the reporting from Ukraine was so foggy — was that Russian mechanized columns were driving southward, from Borodyanka through Makariv, to cut the main E40 highway about 25 miles west of Kyiv. From there, the Russians could either turn east, toward the capital, or else continue pushing south to strike the P04 highway at Yasnohorodka. About midway between Makariv and Yasnohorodka sits the village of Motyzhyn. There is nothing at all “strategic” about Motyzhyn, a village of about 1,000 people, except that it sits on a road, known locally as Vulytsya Shevchenka (Shevchenko’s Street), that connects the E40 highway to the P04 highway. If the Russians coming down from Makariv were aiming to encircle Kyiv, or if the Ukrainian defenders had blocked the E40 to prevent the invaders from advancing on the city from the west, then this route down Vulytsya Shevchenka through Motyzhyn would be an obvious way to go.

All of that is preamble to this terrible story:

MOTYZHYN, Ukraine—Mayor Olha Sukhenko took care of her village like a family for more than a decade, locals say, sprucing up public buildings, organizing concerts and settling disputes.
When the Russian army withdrew last week after a monthlong occupation, her neighbors found Ms. Sukhenko’s lifeless body in a shallow grave, her hands bound. Her husband and son lay next to her, dead.
Olha, Ihor and Oleksandr Sukhenko are but three of the faces of the brutal aftermath of Russia’s occupation that Ukrainian officials and villagers say left civilians dead on the street and buried under thin layers of dirt before fierce resistance drove them out.
The 50-year-old mayor held together her central Ukrainian village, cut off and near the fighting at the front. She delivered food and medicine. And she helped the resistance, part of an undercover effort to send Russian troop positions and movements to her country’s military, Ukrainian officials and others involved say.
“She was the best person until her last minute,” said Mykola Kurach, the head of the village’s volunteer defense forces who led the reconnaissance effort.
Residents say the Russian aggression against locals surged as the Russians came under attacks from Ukrainian artillery and ambush teams. The Russians shot two women while hunting for Ukrainian agents, they say. The body of another man, a security guard from the local cottage compound, was found dumped down a well. . . .
The war came quickly to Motyzhyn, a village of some 1,000 people just off the main highway about 25 miles west of Kyiv. On Feb. 27, three days after Russia invaded, more than 100 Russian army vehicles swept through the quiet, single-lane streets.
“There are foreign bastards in our village,” Ms. Sukhenko posted on her Facebook page on the day they arrived. “Take care. Don’t leave your homes. Keep calm.”
The Russians set up a headquarters at a farm on the northeast edge of the village, digging trenches in the nearby forest where locals hunt for wild mushrooms. . . .
The Russians had dug in on the edge of town in the forest with a network of trenches. . . .
“They were planning to be here for some time,” said Ivan Rudyak, the commander of the territorial-defense unit in a nearby village who is in charge of restoring order in Motyzhyn.
But the assault on Kyiv wasn’t going well. An initial lightning thrust had been repelled. Ukrainian forces had blown bridges and were preventing them from crossing. Attempts to surround the city were proving difficult. One attempt by Russian armored vehicles to break south of Motyzhyn failed, with at least one tank destroyed. Ukrainian artillery shelled Russian positions in the forest on the edge of Motyzhyn.
On March 18, a Ukrainian ambush team sneaked into the village and destroyed a Russian armored vehicle and truck with antitank weapons. The Russians responded with fury. The next day, they launched what they called a clearance operation through the village in search of Ukrainian agents. . . .

You can read the rest of that. It would appear, based on this account, that Motyzhyn was perhaps the southernmost advance of the Russian force that came south out of Belarus via Borodyanka. The atrocities inflicted on the villagers at Motyzhyn seem to have been typical of the brutality that Russian troops practiced everywhere in Ukraine.

Now, let me ask: If you were Volodymyr Zelenskyy, would you be willing to cede anything in negotiations with the Russians who had done this to your people? Or would you rally your people to fight until there was not a single invader left alive to return to Russia? Whatever the cost, cut off their retreat, surround them and kill every one of them — no quarter.

By God, I know that’s what I’d do. The Russian invaders in Ukraine have effectively signed their own death warrants, as far as I’m concerned.

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Category: Russia, Ukraine
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