Last Doolittle Raider dies. You should feel small in comparison

This is a couple months old, because I have not been posting much lately. OK, not much at all for about two years. Hey, I've been busy.

Anyway, the last surviving man who went on the April 1942 Doolittle Raid on Tokyo during World War II died April 9 at the age of 103.

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Richard "Dick" Cole, the last surviving member of World War II’s Doolittle Raiders, died Tuesday in Texas at the age of 103.
Cole, originally from Dayton, Ohio, was mission commander Jimmy Doolittle's co-pilot in the 1942 bombing attack less than five months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.The bold raid on Japan is credited with providing the United States with a morale boost and helping turn the tide of the war in the Pacific.

These guys were all genuine bad asses. They took off knowing they didn't have enough fuel to get home. Hell, they took off from an aircraft carrier, which had never been done before with the bombers they flew, and they hoped to be able to make it to China, where they hoped to be assisted in escaping by the locals. Hope is not a plan.

Because the planes were launched farther from Japan than planned because the U.S. ships carrying the raiders were spotted by Japanese fishing boats well before the planned launch point, most of the aircraft ran out of fuel right at the Chinese coastline. Read the book "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" to get caught up on this.

Anyway, I think the main takeaway from this is that you will never, ever, ever in your life be half the bad ass this dude was.




The raid didn't really do much damage, but it was a huge boost for the American public. Way too many of the raiders didn't survive, and many others suffered for years in Japanese POW camps. All of those who went on the raid deserve our thanks. Lt. Col. Cole, rest in peace, job well done.

Independence Day dessert

Forgot to put this up on July 4th, so I will rectify that omission now. Not a food porn post -- I will do that the next time I make this dessert -- just a belated Independence Day post. The dessert is this:

It was really good.

Actually, beer drinkers aren't boycotting Yuengling over Trump endorsement

Click-bait fucks say this kind of thing all the time. Everybody is now boycotting (fill in the blank) because the owner of the company that makes (fill in the blank) supports conservative causes. The fast-food chain Chick Fil-A was famously "boycotted" when the owner discussed his Bible-based beliefs in an interview and declined to support homosexuality. He didn't say anything negative about gays or gay rights, and the fast-food chain observes all federal non-discrimination laws regarding hiring -- and no one has ever complained that they don't hire gays because of their sexual orientation - but the social justice warriors got their panties in a wad and called for a boycott of the chain.

Naturally, this led to record sales. Most people don't think it is weird to consider that a natural family unit is a man, a woman, and children. That's the position the chain owner took. The "boycott" went nowhere.

Now, Yuengling -- a regional beer based in Pennsylvania -- is supposedly being boycotted by social justice warriors because the owner expressed support for Donald Trump. I'm sure that this will be every bit as successful as the Chick Fil-A boycott, which led to Chick Fil-A becoming a top 10 fast food franchise, and the top franchise in sales per location.

Yuengling makes good beer. I drink it often, usually picking up some at the Thurmont Sheetz because it has the best prices. Plus, the Thurmont Sheetz is right across the street from Mountain Gate Family Restaurant, which sells really good pies. Bonus!

The fact of the matter is, pretty much nobody boycotts a business because social justice warriors say they should do so over the business owner's political beliefs. People who patronize a business do so because they like the product. When SJWs call for a boycott, people who agree with the owner's beliefs -- and they generally outnumber the SJWs, who are so far left that almost no one agrees with them -- patronize the business even if they do not normally do so, yielding a result that is the exact opposite of the the SJWs hoped for. Because the mainstream media agrees with the SJWs, you never hear about that. You only hear about the boycott.

So enjoy a Yuengling if you are lucky enough to live in an area where the beer is available.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2016/10/27/beer-drinkers-are-boycotting-yuengling-after-its-billionaire-owner-endorses-trump/#765d05f75bac

Ross Perot, RIP

Ross Perot, a very successful businessman who staged a successful rescue operation in 1979 to get some of his employees out of an Iranian prison following the Islamist revolution there and ran for president twice, died last week at the age of 89. He ran for present largely because he hated George H.W. Bush and drew enough Republican votes to give Bill Clinton the victory in the 1992 election.

Ross Perot ran again in 1996 -- much less successfully -- and was heard from no more, at least in the public eye. Former Texas governor Rick Perry, however, wrote a commentary piece following Perot's death that highlighted a side of the man not seen by very many people:

During my time as governor of this great state, I had the honor and privilege of knowing countless warriors who stepped forward to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan and returned home with horrific wounds of war. U.S. Army Cpl. Alan Babin Jr. is one such hero.
While serving in Iraq in 2003 as a medic in the 82nd Airborne, Alan was shot in the abdomen while tending to a fallen comrade. While Alan survived his injury, he faced a long and difficult road to recovery, complicated by the onset of meningitis and a stroke-induced coma that left him confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
On the one-year anniversary of his wounding, I joined Alan and his family for a small gathering. He was still in very bad shape, neurologically and physically incapacitated. When I asked his mother, Rosie, what I could do to help, she said she was eager to get him out of the hospital and back home, but struggling with the prospect of transporting Alan to his many medical visits.
I knew there was one person to call: Ross Perot. What happened next still amazes me to this day. The next morning, Ross personally called Rosie and made arrangements for his plane to pick up the Babins in Austin and fly them to Dallas where Alan could be seen by leading neurologists at Zale Lipshy University Hospital.
When the hospital elevators opened, Ross was standing there to meet Alan personally and ensure that he got the best of care. Later that day, Rosie was handed a key to a hotel room across the street so she could be close to Alan throughout his extended stay.

There is much more at the link. Ross Perot was a lot of things, but one thing for sure is that he was a patriot who put his money where his mouth was when it came to supporting our troops, and nobody ever heard about it. As far as I'm concerned, that made him a great man.

Heavy-Metal Knitting? Wow.

Never really thought this was a thing, but apparently it is, at least in Finland. Bands from nine countries took part in the competition (OK, so maybe not much of a thing), vying for the title of, um, I'm not sure what:

Armed with needles and a yarn of wool, teams of avid knitters danced to the deafening sounds of drums beating and guitars slashing at the first-ever Heavy Metal Knitting World Championship in eastern Finland.
With stage names such as Woolfumes, Bunny Bandit and 9'' Needles, the participants shared a simple goal: to showcase their knitting skills while dancing to heavy metal music in the most outlandish way possible.

Never really thought about this much. I mean, I've thought about heavy metal -- not a big fan -- and I've thought about knitting -- don't knit -- but I've definitely never thought about the two together. I don't know if that makes me a Luddite or what. Anyway:

Thursday's competition saw participants from nine countries, including the United States, Japan, and Russia, put on inspired performances full of theatrics, passion and drama and the jury struggled to agree upon a winner.
Finally, it was a Japanese performance by the five-person Giga Body Metal team that clinched the title with a show featuring crazy sumo wrestlers and a man dressed in a traditional Japanese kimono.

So good for them, I guess.

Just a few Temp Town haikus

My job might be going longer than I thought. A couple weeks ago, I figured our over-under was four weeks, meaning I thought we'd be done in two weeks. Looks like that won't be true, and we might be around until October. Fingers crossed, but here are some haikus about the whole thing:

Looking a lot like
We'll be here a little while
longer than I thought.

Democrat AGs
seeking more publicity
Accomplishing squat

No clue why they think
People will believe that they
Are on the right side.

Fuck Colin Kaepernick

Apparently, Colin Kaepernick convinced Nike not to issue a shoe with the Betsy Ross flag on its heel. Apparently, his rationale was that the 1776 flag “represents an era associated with slavery.” This is part of the leftist effort of recent years to try and convince the country -- or themselves, or somebody -- that the United States is an evil nation unable to shake its original sin of allowing slavery. 

The fact that the U.S. did not invent slavery and was not the first or anywhere near the last nation to allow slavery doesn't matter to fuckheads like Kaepernick. They don't care that Hillary Clinton turned Libya into a slave market (look it up) or that slavery is quite common in many countries, especially in majority-Muslim nations. The fact that the vast majority of the Founding Fathers were opposed to slavery but compromised to form a new republic also apparently does not matter. Nor does the fact that the nation fought a bloody war with states that had seceded in order to preserve slavery. That war led to the end of slavery and resulted in more American deaths than any war in U.S. history.

No one pretends the U.S. has always been perfect. I don't know what Colin Kaepernick wants other than attention. But I know he's a fucking moron who knows fuck all about history. And if he thinks the 1776 Betsy Ross flag is somehow racist, I suppose that's his right. Is he willing to come straight out and call former President Barack Obama a racist, though? Because this image is from one of Obama's inaugurations:

Yeah, don't know which one. Don't care. Apparently that flag, hanging on the far left and the far right, wasn't a problem then. So, back to our title: Fuck Colin Kaepernick.

Happy Independence Day!

Enjoy it.