June 22, 1941

Seventieth anniversary and all that. Even NPR noticed, although they were more interested in reporting the "New" information that Stalin had reports Barbarossa was coming.

It's not the reports, the question is, why did he ignore them?

Duh.

Well, I've done my duty today, apologies for the absence.

Libyan No Fly Zone

So?
And why should we care?

It's the Italians, and their European Friends who are worried about waves of Boat People.

They have air forces, let them conduct the campaign. Make it clear through NATO channels that we will support them with AWACS, Tankers, and Logistics. But let them organize a command and conduct the campaign.
Send John Boehner (You know, the guy whose party claims we are broke?) to Germany and France to turn his pockets out and say, "We'll support you to about the extent you are supporting us in Afghanistan. Now put your heads together and arm twist the Italians into a program, the AngloSphere is fully committed elsewhere."

Bad Military Fiction

Specifically,

The Pirate Hunters by Mack Maloney

Tor Forge, May 2010.

I mean, at one point the bad guys were "waving 50 caliber machine guns in the air"

And geographic absurdities.

OK, as a nothing book it was OK; But the standards of editing just seem to keep declining.

And when I start to have followers, I'll start to add Amazon links.

German "Frightfullness"

The German (WW I/II) (Well, Colonial and Franco-Prussian Wars too, not than anyone cares)

Is "Schrechlichkeit"

I think; I've had a terrible time tracking this down.

Apologies

I guess I have been more depressed than I thought I was, for some reason I have totally neglected this for the past couple of years. We'll try and post semi-regularly and build up a body of work so I have SOMETHING I can refer people too.

And I have set up another separtate blog for my local residence issues.

What We Need by Barrett Tillman (Book Review)

"What We Need: Extravagance and Shortage in America's Military"
by Barrett Tillman, St Paul, Minnesota, Zenith Press (MBI), St Paul, Minnesota, 2007; 254 pp.
go
Every now and then MBI tries to publish a serious book. Not sure how well distributed this one was, another "surface find" at my local Public Library. About half of it is just repeating things most of us already know; The Air Force is failing to manage the future need for Airlift (Some interesting details I had not known); The F-22 and similar programs are unaffordable, yada, yada.

And there was a significant amount of coverage on the subtle problems that there really should be no excuses for five years into a major conflict. A shortage of (Small arms) range time and Ammunition?

Plus a plea for the NRA to be recognized (Encouraged?) to play it's original role in pre-training manpower in individual marksmanship skills. Kind of a contrast to the high level issues in other parts of the book, I agree, we need to revitalize the NRA and the Civilian Marksmanship Program.

OK; Say Two and a half stars.

Somali Pirates

Are back in the news;

At least two things at work here, the cost shifting of "capitalism", the well documented destruction of the US Flag Merchant Marine. These VERY expensive capital assets (Merchant Ships) are crewed by the minimum number of third world Mariners, there simply is no slack in the labor force to stand security watches.

And the Europeans have a cow at the suggestion they (Merchant ships) be armed anyways. Sheesh folks, put a couple of squads with Machine guns on any ship transiting the area (Enough for 24/7 watch standing). Let the Europeans do it, it's a lot closer to them than us.

High seas Piracy has ALWAYS been a Capital Crime. Any "catch and release" program, they'll just go get new boats. The FAILED governance of Somalia is NOT our problem.

("our" = The developed, trading world community)