Tag Archives: military

Microfilm of Yankee Army Civil War correspondence

Packing up things I came across a box containing 30-some spools of microfilm I bought from the US Archives 20 years ago.  All the US military correspondence in the Department of New Mexico and Arizona, 1856 [I think] through 1866.  Includes California Volunteers after they crossed the Yuma River headed for the Rio Grande, also the Apache campaign and Navajo 1863-64 business.  And the late-1850s Bonneville campaign against the Apache with the occasional Navajo thrown in to spice it up.

I don’t think I’m going back to a place in my life where I’m staring at microfilm reader screens anymore.  If any of you have any interest in owning those spools, or know anyone who’d like to have them for the price of parcel post sending them, contact me at josephusminimus@hotmail.com.

Or if you have any ideas about some research library might like to own them under those conditions.  Or any other ideas how I can find someone who might get some use out of them.  Scads of interesting, intriguing, baffling stuff in there.

I’m not carrying them around with me anymore.

Old Jules

Too much non-military spending is the problem

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

The cats and I were trying to understand what all those useless eaters were fighting about in Washington DC.  Decided it must be unhappiness about the way the money was spent in 2013, so I went for a look.

As you can see, a huge percentage of the discretionary money wasn't spent on National Defense in 2013.

As you can see, a huge percentage of the discretionary money wasn’t spent on National Defense in 2013.

Turns out there are two types of spending going on.  Mandatory spending is one, discretionary is the other.  The chart above depicts where they spend the money coming out of taxes and they can tweak.

The “Social Security & Unemployment” and “Medicare & Health” take on a major fraction of the federal spending, amounting to about 58% of the total outlays, whereas “Military” spending appears to amount to just 18%. The problem with this representation is that the Social Security & Medicare are parts of the mandatory spending directly financed by the dedicated revenue raised from payroll taxes, as imposed by the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), not through the Federal income tax and thus represents a different Treasury account.

If we separate the mandatory spending and look only at the discretionary spending component appropriated by Congress on an annual basis and for which all the federal programs compete, a very different picture arises.

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2013/10/us-military-spending-the-17-foot-tall-insectoid-robo-warriors-from-the-planet-zandor-2788430.html

Probably that enormous portion of the budget being frittered away on non-defense spending is what has those people upset and shutting down the government.  Each one of those non-defense slices could be halved or quartered easily so’s to provide a means of continuing and even increasing defense spending without anyone feeling the pinch.

There's no way any US citizen has any business feeling safe when we aren't even matching the combined rest of the world in military spending.

There’s no way any US citizen has any business feeling safe when we aren’t even matching the combined rest of the world in military spending.

The US isn’t even spending half as much on national defense as the rest of the world combined is spending on theirs.  It’s no wonder those elected representives and senators are digging in their heels.  They’re scared.

Congress knows their primary responsibility is to protect the citizenry from foreign invaders and likely they won’t give an inch until they know they’re doing it.

Old Jules

A century of bloodshed – Look what those lowdown stinking Muslims did!

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.

You never-forgetters have something to remember and celebrate not forgetting it.

This time a century ago the sneaky lowdown stinking Muslim Ottoman Empire was withdrawing from the Balkans.  Territory ripe for the taking by devil-take-the-hindmost.

Naturally the web of inbred monarch cousins ruling Europe, Russia and Britain wanted a piece of what those Muslims were leaving behind.  And by 1913 they’d all decided which cousins were friends this time around, and which were enemies.

Those cousins had plenty of cannon fodder and they were all waiting for a spark to set them off so’s they’d have an excuse for their patriotic homeland worship-ridden peasantry to cut one another down with artillery, machine guns and bayonettes.

A few months down the road they got their excuse when their Austrian cousin got offed by a Serbian as he drove by in a motorcade on the way to laying down the law the Austrians were about to provide for the Serbians to march to.

Thoroughly pissed off the cousins running France, the Austrian Empire, the Russian Empire, the German Empire, the British Empire, and scattered cousins elsewhere.  Eventually even the cousins running the United States.

So naturally they sent their peasants out to slaughter one another for the homeland, protecting their motherlands from all the damned foreigners taking the ownership of the land, food, wealth and power from the cousins who were providing them their weaponry and telling them to “CHARGE!  Fight to the death!”

Gave us one hell of a 20th Century.  After that the Russian peasants on the front lines starving to death fighting Germans and Austrians decided, “Screw this shit!”.  Went home and chopped their ruling cousins to death instead of going after the intended target.

Damned British cousins were having distractions in Ireland where they were starving everyone to death, and Wales with the coal miners wanting to get paid and have safety standards in their mines where so many were getting killed in mine accidents.  Had to call in the cousins from the US to bail them out.

As if that weren’t enough, the cheeky bastard Turks whipped the socks off the British Navy and all the Australian and Indian peasants the British cousins sent to invade Turkey!

French cousins had some difficulties because the damned German cousins kept telling their peasants in the trenches to shoot the French peasants, and the French cousins having to shoot their own peasants when they tried to get the hell out of Dodge.

And all because of the damned Turks.  Those damned sneaky-assed Ottoman Muslim Turks.  They caused it all.  The end of the Russian cousins, the Austrian cousins having to hide a longish time, the British cousins having to let go their stranglehold on Ireland and pay their damned miners in Wales, give them air down in the holes and ways to fight fires.

Damned Muslim bastards caused the WWII and Cold War.  Civilization hasn’t recovered yet.   30-40 million people killed in that one war and all because of those lowdown sneaking no-go0d-for-nothing Moslems.

Not to mention all the damage it did all over the world by opening up the Pandora’s Box of unions springing up all over the place keeping factory and industry owners from making an honest living by having to pay wages, have safety enough on jobs to keep a lot of injured workers from drawing attention to themselves.

And now they’re trying to do it again.  Forcing the cousins in the United States into sending the peasants out with the new generation of weaponry.

Old Jules

Saved by the British? Wow!

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by.

My friend Rich explained on the phone last night that this guy in the White House had his heart set on embarking on a new military adventure.  Wants to bomb the bejesus out of Syria, of all places.  Sounds as though he wants to take a page out of the Bush book and use the second-cousin of WMD to justify it.

But at least the Brits have some questions in their minds left over from the last time they believed a lying US president and got themselves into a stewpot.  Plus, no doubt the ‘What’s in if for me?‘ part of the equation didn’t work out.

Evidently Israel, who probably provided the chemical weapons to the party who used them, and the French are just about the only people in the world with any enthusiasm forselective humanitarianism. 

The Chinese say, “Hey, let’s have a closer look at all this crap and find out whether anyone’s telling the truth about any part of it before we jump in chasing imaginary WMDs.”   Likely the Chinese are well aware of the propensity of US presidents for stretching the truth and trotting off into military interventions, false flag terrorism, and just lying for the sake of lying.  And no doubt they’ve got a fair idea who is hiding next door blowing into the coals of “Let’s you and him fight.”  Probably figuring they might be able to come out of it with a few inadvertent more miles of territory belonging to someone else.

Sheeze.  Sounds as though for once a presidential war might be avoided, and that the Brits might be a crucial part of the reason.

Wonders never cease.  Maybe if everyone but the French can keep their testosteronies under control, and if the Israeli  Security people can’t find an Archduke Ferdinand to off,  WWI can be prevented this time around.

Old Jules

Tags:  Syria, Israel, presidential war, US government, britain, france, WMD, Bush, false flag, chemical weapons, humanitarian

Lucky to have good allies

Thanks for coming by for a read, readers.

I was talking to an old guy in town the other day about how lucky the US is to have good, strong allies in this dangerous world.

Him:  Not many countries have been that lucky.  A lot of them hardly have any allies at all.

Me:  Good point.  Korea’s a good example.  If we didn’t have Korea for an ally there’s no telling what would have happened to Japan.  North Korea always threatening to nuke Japan, and all.

Him:  That’s right.  We have to keep a lot of troops over there to keep the North Koreans from invading our ally, South Korea, and nuking Japan.  Old Dugout Doug MacArthur had it right when he said, “Korea’s a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan.

Me:  Yeah.  Costs a lot, but it’s worth it to protect a good ally.  Too bad Japan and Korea don’t have more friends and allies, though.  They’re rich as hell and if some other country could help protect them we could bring some of our troops home.

Him:  No way we can do that though.  We’d no sooner pull our troops out than someone would be going after Japan.

Me:  Well, I suppose it might not be so tempting before too long.  A nuke from North Korea won’t add much to what’s already there the way things are going.  And invading a country wouldn’t be much fun if the invading troops have to wear radiation suits to keep from being poisoned by radiation.

Him:  They are good allies though.  Korea and Japan, both.  I’d hate to see us have to get by without having them for allies.  They’ve done a lot for us.  Korea and Japan both.

Me:  I’m glad too.  It’s a scary world out there.  Without good allies like Korea and Japan things would be a lot scarier.  But we’re lucky we don’t have more.  I don’t think we could afford it.

Old Jules

Tooth Fairies, Trouble-Makers and Japanese Nukes

2013 Tooth Fairy with Radioactivity Sniffer Dog

2013 Tooth Fairy with Radioactivity Sniffer Dog

Hi readers.

If you’re like me you probably wonder why the Tooth Fairy changed so much since we were kids.  It was the Baby Tooth Survey did it.  Here’s what happened:

When the Commandant of the National Tooth Fairy Regiment died of cancer in 1963 a lot of traitorous whining wimps in Missouri started crying about the fact the US Government was dropping hydrogen bombs on itself to pre-emptively protect itself in case someone else should drop nukes on Nevada and New Mexico. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Tooth_Survey

Baby Tooth Survey

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The Baby Tooth Survey was initiated by the Greater St. Louis Citizens’ Committee for Nuclear Information in conjunction with Saint Louis University and the Washington University School of Dental Medicine as a means of determining the effects of nuclear fallout in the human anatomy by examining the levels of radioactive material absorbed into the deciduous teeth of children.

Founded by the husband and wife team of physicians Eric and Louise Reiss, along with other scientists such as Barry Commoner, the research focused on detecting the presence of strontium-90, a cancer-causing radioactive isotope created by the more than 400 atomic tests conducted above ground that is absorbed from water and dairy products into the bones and teeth given its chemical similarity to calcium. The team sent collection forms to schools in the St. Louis, Missouri area, hoping to gather 50,000 teeth each year.[1] Ultimately, the project collected over 300,000 teeth from children of various ages before the project was ended in 1970.

Preliminary results published by the team in the November 24, 1961, edition of the journal Science showed that levels of strontium 90 in children had risen steadily in children born in the 1950s, with those born later showing the most increased levels.[2] The results of a more comprehensive study of the elements found in the teeth collected showed that children born after 1963 had levels of strontium 90 in their baby teeth that was 50 times higher than that found in children born before the advent of large-scale atomic testing. The findings helped convince U.S. President John F. Kennedy to sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the United Kingdom and Soviet Union, which ended the above-ground nuclear weapons testing that placed the greatest amounts of nuclear fallout into the atmosphere.[3]

Follow-up analysis
A set of 85,000 teeth that had been uncovered in storage in 2001 by Washington University were given to the Radiation and Public Health Project. By tracking 3,000 individuals who had participated in the tooth-collection project, the RHPR published results in a 2010 issue of the International Journal of Health Service that showed that the 12 children who later died of cancer before the age of 50 had levels of strontium 90 in their stored baby teeth that was twice the level of those who were still alive at 50.[3][4]

After that things seemed to settle down okay for a while.  Then came Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl.  Tooth Fairies were dying off like flies.  Gums rotting away, skin peeling off them like overcoats.

Fact is, we almost lost the whole kaboodle of Tooth Fairies when the Japanese started dumping all the radioactivity they could scrape together and sending it into the atmosphere headed for Alaska, California, Washington and Oregon.  Pumping water hotter than a two-dollar pistol into the Pacific Ocean.

Tooth Fairy recruitment programs went to zilch.  Finding new Tooth Fairies to replace the ones getting the blind staggers was tougher than the Mother Church trying to find women willing to be nuns.

Luckily, the US Military and the National Academy of Multi-Layered Police Forces, comprising about half the US population, came to the rescue.  Provided pistols to be held to the temples of potential Tooth Fairies who were trying to take French leave from the job.  But to compensate, providing body armor and radioactivity sniffing dogs to help the ones still able bodied enough to slip into a bedroom at night and reach under a pillow for a tooth stay alive longer.

Saved again by the police and the US military and mercenary forces.

Old Jules

The importance of being insignificant

N90172a

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

President Jimmy Carter was scheduled to visit Fort Hood.  The First Cavalry Division [my old unit in Korea] was to stage massive war games and tank maneuvers and culminate the affair with a chemical substitute for a battlefield tactical nuclear weapon.  Because the President was going to be there, FAA closed down the airspace over Fort Hood for civilian air traffic.

Pissed my old buddy Phil Washburn  

Afterlife of One Hero – Sex, Violence and Crazy Love

  and me off something awful.  We were taxpaying citizens.  Who the hell did they think they were telling people they couldn’t fly around not bothering anyone watching how our tax dollars were being spent?

So when the day arrived we gassed up the old Cessna …. 100+ F on the runway, and began the long climb outside the forbidden airspace.  Burned up a lot of avgas and an hour getting up to 8000-9000 MSL.  Clear day though, and the temperature became comfortable somewhere above 5000′.

We circled at the edge of the airspace boundary watching the specks of gathered tanks and massed troops a few miles to the north waiting for the show to start.  Suddenly, hundreds of roostertails of dust obscured miles of landscape as the tanks charged forward.  Then the sky below us filled with helicopters.  Wow!  Wowowowowow!

I gradually eased us north until we were almost over the action, but still far enough south so’s we weren’t trying to see straight down, kept circling.  Powered back enough to hold the altitude, savor the cool, and watch what a major wartime battle must be like viewed from the air.

Finally, toward the north beyond all the tanks the substitute battlefield nuke sent up a heluva pile of smoke and fire into the sky, rising rising rising until we were looking up at the top.  It kept rising.

Turn off the lights.  The party’s over.  The roostertails behind the tanks had all faded, everyone down there was taking a break, having a drink of orange KoolAid or something, we reckoned.  The helicopters were headed away where ever helicopters go when the shooting stops.

Time for us to get-the-hell-out-of-Dodge before the high sheriff and POLice come gunning for us.

I pointed us back toward the Killeen airport and as we neared the edge of forbidden territory I shut down the engine, pulled up the nose to stop the propeller windmilling.  The old Cessna had a 20:1 glide ratio, so we were a long while circling over the airport just listing to the whisper of the wind over the surfaces of the plane.

I’d intended to push the nose down to re-start the engine when I got on final approach, but I’d never landed dead-stick and figured this was as good a time as any to do it.  Got the numbers and came to a dead stop 50 feet beyond them, restarted the engine and taxied over to the FBO under the admiring stares of everyone who never landed an airplane dead stick on a public air strip. 

Naturally we did a lot of bragging at the FBO, and a lot of people were shaking their heads in various attitudes of disapproval, horror, and awe.

Hell of a fine day to be an outlaw.   I recommend it.

Old Jules

Why US troops are helping suppress rebels in the Congo

jeffdavis3

President Barack Obama:  “Primitive, often non-white people have no respect for the law, private property owned by US corporations, and for the authority manifested in duly recognized goverment.  The Congo must be protected.  Residents must be allowed to enjoy freedom without interference of rebels and outside Chinese attempts to control tropical Africa for the minerals, timber and other resources located there.

The US is forced to maintain large bodies of troops in Afghanistan and an equally large mercenery force in Iraq at great expense to itself to prevent US military activities on the African continent becoming an international issue.”

Symbiopatriosis – the 21st Century Killer Disease

Military Industrial Complex

20th Century had its share, though.

The Yosarian syndrome.  Bastards are trying to kill me!  They’re trying to kill me every time I go up to drop bombs on them.

Support this current war because our soldiers got killed trying to invade them.  Can’t let the troops down.

The joys of patriotism

hero patriot2

Being the staunch patriot that I am, I love seeing those pictures of some brave good American boy marine, or seabee, or special forces hero crawl out of a hideyhole and blow the head off some anonymous coward on a cliff half-mile away.

I love it when some good brave American hero technician punches a button in Kabul to launch a drone and blows the arms and legs off a village full of anonymous people all the way over in Pakistan who should have been more careful where they lived.

I love it that good American hero soldier boys can hide inside a tank that a nuclear weapon couldn’t penetrate and blow up anything that offends their sensibilities in some godforsaken country where the people don’t value human life the way we do.

We’re paying a million, or a billion dollars a day into keeping our good brave troops over there all over places nobody ever heard of for reasons nobody can fathom.  But at least we’re getting something worthwhile for our money.  We can look at those pictures of bodies falling off cliffs and blood and guts of kids, women and even the occasional man, and know our heroes are defending our country and our freedom.