Hello Guest

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - Flyin6

Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 43
51
Message from the Owner / There is something going on here...3:16
« on: December 06, 2023, 02:13:01 PM »
Everyone knows the number, 3-16
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son for so ever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

It is God's reassurance of eternal life with Jesus, through belief in Jesus. It is evidence of the very nature of God, that being Love and grace and the principle he wishes us to live by as well, that of faith.

Yep, pretty special numbers for sure

You might also note that every year our Christmas donation ends up with those same trailing numbers. No matter what the first digits are $x,xx3.16 you'll notice we echo the promise of eternal life as promised by God in our giving. And that is pretty cool

But know what else I have recently noticed? Guess how many registered members we have here?
Did you guess 316? Hard to believe but we have 316 registered members (until the next one joins)

And folks that is not all. If you look at the viewer statistics, guess how many people/bots/whatever we had viewing the site at one time? As in the most viewers online at the same time ever!
That number is, amazingly, 3,316!

You can't make this stuff up or create conditions where everything points to the same number.

It is my belief that there is a spirit at work here, the spirit of God.

Just so you know, and if I haven't ever said it before, RealMan is our name. The real man I reference is Jesus, for he is the best and greatest example of a Real Man that I know.

So blessings all, I thought folks would be encouraged knowing we have a core value number and it is none other than 316!

52
Russians are on the cutting edge with this one.

The idea here is to wrap the thin-skinned truck with exploding reactive (Tank) armor. This way when a bullet hits the truck it acts as if it were clothed in tannerite (Because it it!)

Not a great idea...I think the West will just bypass this one...

53
Coffee Induced Early Morning Rant / A.I. is coming on fast
« on: December 03, 2023, 10:39:47 AM »
It looks like A.I. will soon become the dominant factor or player on the world's stage. Militarily, A.I. is advancing rapidly. I am now hearing the term "Autonomous Lethality" tossed around like a common buzzword. Of course, that means we hook up an A10 to a laptop and tell it to react to the situation and without significant oversight. No danger there, right?

We have already seen, several times where autonomous aircraft operated by us returned to notionally kill its operator, a US Airman because the drone saw the operator as an impediment to the drone fulfilling its mission of suppressing enemy air defenses. OK, who saw that coming?

But China and Russia and to a lesser extent, North Korea are pushing A.I. as hard as they can. That does not leave us room to throttle back and take a measured approach and field well-tested and vetted killing things. Nope, we are forced to stay ahead of the curve and that means we could be pushing ourselves and the world into the COVID-19 vaccine thing where the nearly mandated vaccine was forced upon us and now is proving to also be an effective killer of people. Too much new technology, too fast. It is starting to be a thing.

This is very concerning. War is going to expand. The Oppenheimer movie is now popular. We/he once thought if we developed nuclear bombs that the prospect of warfare would be all but eliminated. It would be too awful to contemplate. Does the world look like we adopted that approach at the present moment? I'll wager that concerning A.I.: Same-same.

Brace yourself because, like it or not, A.I. and all its unknowns are coming fast.

54
Donations / Christmas 2023
« on: November 28, 2023, 09:14:59 PM »
Gentlemen, it's that time again. We have now made it happen for families in need for 8 years and are about to make it happen for #9! Outstanding!

I have two candidates at the moment. Instead of just arbitrarily making a choice, I am placing it before the Lord and all of you. I want you to pray over this to see if, 1-you are supposed to donate, and 2-to which of these needy causes.

Possibility number 1: There is a single mom with two children whose home burned down this past year. They live in an apartment and are having trouble making ends meet. Christmas will probably be too much of a stretch for her, and they actually need a bunch of the normal trappings of a normal modern home since they lost almost everything.

Possibility number 2: This family of four has two children, both of whom suffer from some rare condition. At this time, I do not know what those rare conditions actually are. The family had to move to Cincinnati because the child with the most urgent need will undergo surgery this week. I think the working father had to take a local job and does not have health insurance just yet. Further, the surgery is a risky one and he plans to be with his child (along with his mom) until that child is out of danger. He will have to take unpaid leave to do so.

I have a contact that is somewhere near these people in need. This person is aware that the men of our website come together to help out people around Christmas. The person reached out to me to put these two families in need in our zone of consideration.

Personally, both families sound like great candidates to me...Could we support both? Historically we do not get to $2K so it would be a stretch unless God intervenes. I would like to hear your thoughts. Discuss it openly here or PM me if you wish to remain secretive, which is fine. I have the donation tab here, a PayPal and a Venmo account as well as an address for checks. I am thinking I would try and meet these families' needs on the 21st or the 22nd of December.

Let me know your thoughts.

57
Faith Discussion / Which Bible version?
« on: November 20, 2023, 10:44:22 AM »
Out of curiosity, which version of the bible do you prefer?

I have used the NIV for decades but also use the King James...

58
Faith Discussion / Who has read the whole bible?
« on: November 20, 2023, 10:42:46 AM »
I thought about it the other day and realized there may be parts of the bible I have never read or seen. So I logged into BibleGateway.com and signed up for a 1-year reading plan. I've been at it for a while now and have gotten used to the amount of reading each morning. I would warn you, however, not to get too far behind or you'll owe it some considerable seat time catching up...

Who out there has read the entire bible?

59
Our Pro-Military, Veteran, and Thin Blue Line place / Today is Veterans Day
« on: November 10, 2023, 11:13:54 AM »
Happy Veterans Day (one day early)

My bad but I will be in a remote location for the next couple days...Deer season...

Thank you all of you fellow warriors. Thanks for the missed anniversaries. Thanks for standing in a dustbin while your child graduated from high school. Thanks for sucking up the hurt when you heard the day after your mother or father passed away realizing you may not be able to get back for the funeral. Thanks for putting America first, at least the part worth saving. Thanks for standing up when almost everyone else would not or had some excuse.

I want to say thanks for being a friend to me and a million other bros who needed someone to talk to when the freakin' world was just crushing you, but you had to jock up and move out anyway.

Thanks for putting up with the bad knees the broken backs and the torn rotator cups. Thanks for so many sleepless nights that you spent looking through some NVG or gunsight or at some radar screen or spent on a windswept hill overlooking a valley whose name you couldn't pronounce.
I thank you even now for that strong handshake or that free breakfast when I/we need someone who's been there to vent to. I'm sorry that you lost your marriage because you were "gone too much." And while I'm at it, thanks to all you wives and daughters and sons and brothers and sisters, moms and dads that had to sit back and wait, sometimes unsupported. Thanks for those mental and physical hardships, and thanks for understanding that that bonehead husband or daughter, or wife or son just has to get out there and "play Army" as one of my family members once accused me of.

I know you now have arthritis from many miles of carrying heavy rucks and I know you have mental scars just as bad. Although that sucks, thanks for doing the things that gave you those scars. Thanks as well for not bellyaching in front of our citizens but instead, for standing tall. That brings honor to our military and strength to our nation because millions of people knowing what we went through see us remaining strong. You are part of a very small percentage of society. You have courage, and you showed it.

You swore an oath and you upheld it. You developed integrity and that brought you honor which in turn brings our nation honor. You counted when we needed someone to grab that flag and start marching onward. And you marched off into an unknown. We who can read this were fortunate enough to have returned. Many of us feel we did not earn the right to still live and to return to normal lives while people we know and perhaps held passed from this life while wearing that uniform. But there is another hallowed day for them. Today is our day.

You did good, so happy Veterans Day.

60
Coffee Induced Early Morning Rant / Was God just up for election?
« on: November 09, 2023, 11:05:46 AM »
Was God just up for election?
A CIEMR
by
Donald Harward


I haven’t written an opinion piece for some time. Perhaps it occurred to me that writing an extensive and researched piece that was only going to be throttled by the low-life adjudicators on FB seemed to be counterproductive. But on the other hand, one never knows what will germinate once seeds are cast into a free wind, now do we?

Yesterday there were elections all over the US. You had the typical challenger offering change and prosperity, and we also had state-level constitutional issues to be decided by the voters at hand. Looking at what was going on in Virginia with Governor Yonkin threatening to flip the senate to Republican and therefore having accomplished the impossible, that being having turned a traditionally blue state 100% red.
Down in the Kentucky the challenger, a Republican, Daniel Cameron, the state's black attorney general, is well known as a Christian conservative and is a good man at heart. He challenged Biden’s socialist policies in court an astounding 23 times and helped protect Kentucky from the communistification of America. (That’s a new word I just invented right there). Well, Mr. Cameron lost. And Governor Yonkin was also handed a stunning defeat. He not only failed to gain control of the Senate of that state but also just lost the legislature too! He is now effectively a lame-duck conservative governor surrounded by a sea of blue. He ran and won a few years ago on the platform of taking government control of the classrooms, promising to give it back to the parents, and he won. He struck a blow against the rewriters of history and our constitution, the woke crowd, and we sang with joy. But now that is all gone.

To my north in Ohio, there was a constitutional amendment on the ballot, and as I see this thing from the wide view, that divisive choice in Ohio is what was really happening all over our nation. And I am afraid the news is not good. Not good, that is, if you believe in God and believe that he really is protecting our nation.

In Ohio, there was an amendment on the ballot that would determine whether Ohio would continue to allow abortions or ban them. Left or right, Christian or carnal, life or death. And I really do look at it that way. You see in the same sense that one cannot be just a little bit pregnant, one cannot determine at which point a human is, well, a human. When does that single-cell miracle become a person? At the moment of birth, perhaps? Halfway through the pregnancy? The middle of the first trimester? Tough question, isn’t it? It almost seems as if a question of that magnitude is above a human’s pay grade, don’t you think?

I think what we witnessed in the election results is a good metric of who we Americans really are. Last year the Supreme Court, in a surprise ruling, sent the matter of Roe vs Wade back to the states. They rightfully decided that abortion should be decided by individual states. And individual states vary widely. Prostitution is legal in Nevada, but not in Illinois (although there are more prostitutes in Chicago than all of Nevada). The legal age to drive or carry a weapon or drink varies from state line to state line. That is how a republic is supposed to work. So aside from the fact that the Supreme Court’s decision was a stunning victory for Christians, it was the correct decision to make within the framework of our Constitution.

OK, having said that, it was Ohio’s turn to decide the matter of abortion, and the people of that state did so. They decided to allow abortions to continue. Another defeat for the Choose Life crowd. And from my seat, I think the larger issue of Christian values is what is really being decided all across our nation. In just about every instance I can find, the candidate who was anti-abortion or openly admitted to being a Christian, (Daniel Cameron for example) lost. You see the inference here is that the people would be electing a man who would lead according to his Christian values. Pro-choice and their Godless minions won handily as well. Should Governor Yonkin have flipped the senate, in the eyes of the Godless, would he also then have everyone in Virginia carrying rosary beads and praying every morning? I think the other side was thinking so. I think the godless are very comfortable just where they are, which is just where Satan wishes them to remain. I think they feel they don’t really need anyone preaching to them or telling them they can’t live their lives in the manner in which they choose. I think a lot of people really do not want to live Godly lives or accept the fact that there really is a God and there is a very real Jesus. They don’t want to know this Jesus is standing in the door (As my Airborne qualified friends prefer to say) and is ready to exit on a low altitude nighttime jump right back into our reality.

Yeah, I think God was up for election on Tuesday. I think, his candidate Jesus was running against the devil. Unfortunately, I think the Devil won. I think the devil has had a lot of time to soften our minds. To lie to us and to make us comfortable while we live out our time. I think that moral decay has paved the way to where we readily accept all kinds of Godless crap. His well-laid-out trap has brought us to a place where God has become a mere historical construct. There was a time when people believed and he served to get them through the tough spots, but now we have an app on our phone to do that.

Now having said that, and being somewhat of a student of history there is a singular moment in time that comes to mind. When our first president, Mr. George Washington was sworn in, he immediately went to a spot outside the church (Yes, he was sworn in, in a church) knelt, and prayed. His prayer is going to come back and haunt us, I fear. President Washington consecrated our nation to God. Look up consecrated but be prepared to become very concerned. He asked God almighty that The Lord would protect America and grow us into a mighty nation to rise above all others on earth. That we would worship and honor God in all that we did, and if we did that, God would protect and bless us. Now ask yourself, does it seem to you that God has protected and blessed us since we were first created?

But there was a second part of that prayer. Mr. Washington prayed that if America ever turned from God and ceased to put him first and worship him, God would remove his protection from our country. Now I ask you, where do you think America currently sits? Do we rest beneath the shadow of the Almighty, seeking to live in accordance with his ways? Or have we moved to another place outside his shadow?
God first destroyed the world with water and vowed never to do that again. He instead said he would destroy the world with fire the next time. And just two days ago I read an article written by some idiot about the places to avoid should a nuclear war between the United States and Russia develop! I can answer that question fairly easily, EARTH!

Something in me tells me we are past the time when we were a Godly nation. I see evidence everywhere of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. I do not feel the “Americans” currently living here collectively have the desire, fortitude, or motivation to seek forgiveness and the face of God. We seem more like a people who are abandoning him. He will remove his protection and we will begin to live in a new season as the bible likes to refer to big changes in our lives.

I see us as a nation abandoning Israel in her time of need or struggling to do so. I see us openly persecuting her people once again. I see us voting for the devil at every election. I see us accepting lies in the face of irrefutable truths, and I see us gladly embracing all manner of evil. Naw, we fell off the cliff.

Now, personally, I see the US of A being destroyed by any number of powerful enemies, but I wonder if he will protect his people. Well before the tribulation comes, when we believers are caught up in the sky, a whole metric ton of bad stuff happens. I’m looking around, and I see the setup. There must be at least a hundred ways we could get smoked like a cheap cigar. Are you seeing it too?

CIEMR: Coffee Induced Early Morning Rant

61
Adventure / Daniel Boone Backcountry Byway
« on: November 07, 2023, 10:18:04 PM »
I started exploring the Daniel Boone Back Country Byway this past weekend.

Sorry, didn't get any pics of the trail but it is definitely there as it appears on the attached map.

It is not all that easy to find and you for sure need a map to navigate it. It is not in the databases of any of the popular off-road apps like the Jeep owned on X off-road . I found a jpeg of the map, downloaded it printed it, then left it on the kitchen table while I drove off. So I had to do the trail from memory. That was strike number one. Strike 2 was the fact that it is currently muzzleloader season and I no doubt wrecked several (many) folk's hunts.

Remembering something about the city of Stanton and Highway 11 and where it intersects with KY 1639, I happened upon the intersection and started along the on-road portion. I got sidetracked on Hardwicks Creek Road and that was that.

My plan is to develop the trail as a two-day trip with a cool camping spot. It is currently a little over 100 miles long, so the 2-day concept is valid.

The history of the byway is interesting. First of all, it is all around the famous Red River Gorge and Natural Bridges state parks. It is also mostly within the Daniel Boone National Forest, which is larger than at least two states I can think of. Anyway, that part of the Tuck is poor and considered "Eastern Kentucky." Near West Virginia, it is the place where the famous Hatfield and McCoy feud actually took place. Steeped in history and geological splendor, the counties of Green, Estill and a couple more wanted to attract some tourism (revenue) so they got together with a local Jeep club and developed the trail system. It has been successful and is going to add another 50-100 miles soon. I like it because it is within a 2.5-hour drive to get there and with new additions coming it will periodically give me something new to explore. It has some good-sized hills, a tunnel you can drive through, some difficult terrain to traverse, and a lot of water crossings. Some of it is actually in a creek bottom, and you need adequate fording depth to attempt it.

Perhaps I'll add to this thread if I get down there anytime soon to actually drive some of the difficult parts.

62
Our Pro-Military, Veteran, and Thin Blue Line place / Warrior spirit
« on: October 30, 2023, 05:59:54 PM »
Couldn't have said it better myself

63
D.O.T. / So are we marching steadily toward a third world war?
« on: October 28, 2023, 11:02:38 AM »
What do you think, are we headed toward a global conflagration?

Israel currently heavily engaged on one front while also experiencing limited fighting on two more

The US hits Iran again, selecting the lowest of priority targets to send a message

Iran threatened to hit the US, and in fact, right after our "message" strikes, fired a drone at US forces in Iraq.

50,000 ISIS fighters and family members are held in a camp in Syria guarded by only 900 US military.

Very low-key, but apparently the Iranians fired on a US warship near the straits of Hormuz.

Russia threatened to shoot down "Elon Musk" satellites if he continued helping Ukraine.

Ukraine making incursions toward Crimea. Just hit that massive Russian bridge a third time...

Russia has a massive build-up of something over a third of a million troops in the "Bulge" area of the front with Ukraine.
That is a force set to counterattack deep, possibly win the thing for Russia.

Talk of Putin being very sick...What's that about?

Russia continues testing hypersonic nuclear missiles in the Arctic, threatening to pull out of their Nuke test ban treaties.

Gaza's death toll is now north of 7,000. The Muslim world starting to boil.

Hezbollah in Lebanon is in possession of over 100,000 rockets and missiles. Could sack Telavi.

Chinese fighters routinely buzz US surveillance planes. Last week intercepted a B52. That is very different since B52 may be carrying nuclear weapons. That could spark an aerial engagement from nearby US fighters.

Tiawan...

Joint US/Japan exercises near North Korea.

North Korea threatens retaliation.

China now denying Philippine forces access to one of their northern outposts in the South China Sea.

Saudi Arabia backing off peace and trade agreement with Israel.

Russia/India/South Africa holding joint naval training exercise.

Massive Chinese investment into Africa. Chinese now have military bases in China.

Are we heading past the tipping point?

64
Hide Site / Hide Site/Bug out location Part 8
« on: October 23, 2023, 08:23:20 PM »
Let's begin with reenergizing this old topic.

Many of you have seen a deserted and run-down property in Rural Kentucky come back slowly, bit by bit. It has been a long road but today the place is completely functional and can be turned into a homestead without a major effort.

Th summarize where we left off in Part 7, which should have seen a major change with me actually moving and living there permanently, but the thread ended with my putting the place up for sale. I did that because, in an unexpected turn, Kat told me she did not want to live there, but preferred staying close to the grandkids. I went along with that, but it hurt. I felt like I was walking away from a big piece of my life, and sentencing myself to a life in Suburbia.

I suppose the whole exercise was necessary to show us that the only thing that really makes any sense is to move there and abandon the increasingly expensive life in a bedroom community near a metropolitan area. I want to say the latest tax increase was the final nail in the coffin. We will not make a monthly tax payment equal to a mortgage payment, and that will never go away. Further, there is the HOA thing, and increasing human pressure. With the remoteness of the farm, no one is coming, ever! It is located in the least populated county in Kentucky, and life is just different there. You have neighbors, but they stay away for the most part. There is not any sign of an overbearing government or oppressive anything. We only ever get busy for a few weeks during Deer season with the rest of the year devoid of any drama or outsiders.

From the Hide Site perspective, the place is remote. I do not actually even have a physical address! My annual tax bill is about the same as a single month's where our "big" house is located. There are still not any building regulations inspections, licenses or anything else associated with building. Just build what you want in the manner in which you desire, and no one will ever check.

It is odd how God worked all this out. I sold off a ton of stuff and implements mostly, but the actual things I really need mostly remained behind, and I still have them. Once the light bulb turned on, I pulled all the marketplace ads for the equipment and de-listed the property with my Realtor.

Having done all that we reevaluated our original plan and found it to be viable. We will convert the shed into a usable cabin, and then move into that. That's when we get busy clearing out of the mansion and get that house ready for sale. I will add another small storage building for the things we wish to keep and chuck everything else. The barn will come online as the primary place of work, and I will continue to improve the property.

Speaking of which, I started in hay production this year. The farm yields 100 ish round bales a year at the present time. I will likely continue with that since it is actually two free cuttings of the property. At $33 a bale, there is some income in that as well. I ordered a replacement sawmill today. I went back with the same mill I owned before, the Woodland Mills HM130 max. I will only set it up to cut 16' logs this time, and not the 20-something stuff which I actually never cut before.

https://woodlandmills.com/hm130max-portable-sawmill/

65
Coffee Induced Early Morning Rant / So true
« on: October 21, 2023, 08:27:58 AM »
We Can't pass the buck...

66
Message from the Owner / Where do we go from here?
« on: October 11, 2023, 12:01:46 PM »
I have been watching traffic fall way off on our website. Whereas one year we eclipsed 4 million views, we receded to just over 3 million last year and this year we will likely end just over the 2-million mark.

While viewer participation has been waning, the costs have skyrocketed. We now pay around a thousand dollars to maintain operations for the coming year. Given the fact that participation is less than half what it once was, that makes us something like 4 times more expensive to operate vs my perceived impact.

I think the lines are starting to cross over on that subjective chart where one considers effort expended vs net return.

I did not get the IT help I needed to migrate the site over to something more cost-effective and I am not technologically capable of doing it myself.

Perhaps reality is about to kick in here, and perhaps our days may be numbered.

I wanted to keep the forum an open place where people post the things they are doing, but I can look at Instagram posts by many of the members here and find a vibrant conversation going on there vs what we have here. I do think we have allowed people to voice their opinions and we have honored the Lord, so there is that. And perhaps the days of the websites are coming to a close except for the most active of the forums. We do not seem to have that going on here.

So as we close in on the eventual renewal, I will let all of you know my thoughts, but the warning flag has been hoisted.

I feel that we need to move all this over to an Instagram-like setting, but at most of those places I feel the Lord will be stifled, and without being able to control content, we will probably see curse words, flaming and nasty pictures at a new venue. That's just my feeling, and I could be wrong. Should we continue to decrease with respect to activity, we will come to a close at the next renewal.


67
Adventure / Out west off road adventure
« on: October 07, 2023, 10:16:47 AM »
Many of you know we just completed another off-road ride, only this time we went for gold, ultimately to do the Alpine Loop in Colorado. Whew, what a trip.

So easing into it we first drove down to Grapevine Texas from the tuck, a 2-day event where we took our time and drove back roads almost the whole way on day 1.

We stopped for lunch at a famous barbecue spot on the Tennessee/Kentucky state line near my old haunt, Ft. Campbell.

The best food along the way was the trip north from Grapevine TX to Amarillo to one of my favorite steak houses in Texas. I think I first ate there in the 1980's

68
Medical Corner / Clean eating
« on: October 06, 2023, 10:38:42 AM »
Back in early August, I started two things. First was to start to record my daily body weight which I took every morning.
The second thing was to start to eat clean.

My body weight in my view had become excessive, with my mid-summer weight coming in at around 253.6 pounds. I do recall seeing the scales tip north of 260ish last winter. I know that is not healthy and not me, but somehow I wasn't doing much about it.

Around August I started reading about clean eating and it was like a light bulb came on in my head. The more I read about food and what our body needs the more I could see how our American food industry is overrun with terrible junk. It seemed to me the highly processed junk foods we eat all the time are purposely designed to keep you hooked on high carb/high-sugar (Same thing) foods that really only make you sick and make you fat.

Well, I just cold-turkeyed the whole thing.

In one day, I just wrote off junk food and sugar and high-salt foods. We cleaned out the pantry leaving it practically bare. We took two carloads of crap out of there and gave it all away. Next, we cleaned two freezers out down to practically nothing. The same thing happened to the fridge. I started consuming vegetables, lean beef, chicken, and beans while watching the salt and sugar. I started studying labels and discovered that there are only very few products out there that are any good at all. I'd reckon that easily 90% of the stuff on the Kroger shelves is poison.

Starting this all off, my blood tests were not promising. I had begun to have plaque in my arteries. I was in the final climb to becoming diabetic. I was maybe a year from developing Cirrhosis of the liver. My glucose was in the 130's. Now, on the flip side I was exercising and had cut out sweet tea, and ice cream, but here's the truth: You cannot out-exercise bad eating.

Here's another: 75% of your health is in what you eat.

So starting there, I began my walk back to health and vigor. Now I do not expect a lot of the latter, about to turn 70, but some would be appreciated. I also have another cliff to scale and that is getting a new arrival, the auto-immune disease Rheumatoid Arthritis under control.

I will need medical treatment to get the RA, and smart folks are on the hunt there, but I can report great success everywhere else. While getting like, constant blood tests and MRIs and X-rays and Cat-scans and Ultrasounds and even an angiogram of my heart, I now know quite a bit about my body.

Yes, I have plaque in my arteries, but not very much. The heart workup shows me to have the heart of a 50-year-old man, so that's good. It seems I have a bit of a small liver issue, but diet can correct that. They studied my Kidneys and found them to be in great shape, they looked for a brain but did not find one, so there is that...

But not by dieting, but just eating good non-processed foods, and very little sugar, I have had an almost daily decrease in body weight. This morning I tipped the scales at 223.3. That is over 30 pounds that have shed and gone somewhere. I look and feel much differently. I started on the third belt hole and now I have progressed all the way to the last hole and need to punch a new one. All my clothes fit and except for this RA keeping me in a lot of pain most of the time, I try to remain active.

I feel that once the Doctors place me on the correct RA medication, I will be hitting the gym at a body weight I have not been at since at least the 1990's!!!

I can also say this is not easy and you need to be purposeful. You can't snack, should keep cheating to a minimum, and exercise your military self-discipline. You need to prepare healthy meals and eat them alone. You need support and you should educate yourself. I am reading "It Starts With Food."

You will go through a roller coaster for a time. You ARE addicted to sugar and when you remove that, all sorts of crappy things will happen to you. Good one day, bad the next. Emotional mood swings but a couple of successes. After a couple weeks things will start to normalize as you grow used to the new you. It is not easy but a good soldier can get it done, and so far, I think it was/is a good move.

69
Faith Discussion / Praise report
« on: September 13, 2023, 09:20:30 AM »
Something has been going on with me for the past 6-7 weeks.
It landed me in the Emergency room a few weeks ago with chest pains, fluid retention, and other heart attack symptoms. I went through a heart echocardiogram and an Angiogram. They found a small/minor blockage that was not enough to worry about, so they did nothing.

All the while I was experiencing growing all-over body pain. Annoying at first it felt like you would after a vigorous workout the day before. It lasted through the hospital stay and has increased with almost every passing day. Matt put me up for prayer here a couple of times anomalously and that did help. The heart study conducted by a research cardiologist here in N KY determined I have a pretty healthy heart and circulatory system. He said I was about a 50-year-old man, although I will soon spin the calendar to my 70's.

For no connected reason, the day before the emergency room visit, I finally threw in the towel on resisting healthy eating and committed. I was a hefty 253.5 starting that adventure. I switched to clean eating only. We cleaned out our pantry, fridges, and freezers and were left with almost nothing. No processed anything and what I do have meets the caveman-style eating regiment of the "Whole-30" lifestyle thinking.
That has resulted in a pretty significant body change. I had a distended belly, which is almost flat once again. I have shed 20 pounds, although I am not trying to lose any weight. I would have been one super healthy dude but something was dragging me down.

Back then I became convicted again about tithing. You see although I have been a tither for most of my Christian life, for the past few years, I have fallen away. Right after I got out of the hospital, even though I was feeling bad, I went to church. Our pastor preached about tithing again but from a different perspective. He said, do you feel like you are stalled in your walk? Feel like there is some barrier you just can't resolve? Well, I had to answer yes on at least two counts. He continued to say, if you aren't tithing then you are not completely sold out for God and Christ and you are not walking in sync with your heavenly fathers.

Well, guilty as charged.

My health has continued to deteriorate in the weeks since. I have actually been considering I may be approaching my death. I have had body pain all over which is pretty severe, mostly joint, but muscular as well. For a while I could get maybe 2 hours of chores done, then I was either sitting or lying down to try and get comfortable. I have been keeping myself on high doses of aspirin and Tylenol, but that has not been working lately. My strength has gone away. I could barely lift a pitcher of water, or walk to the car, or sit on the pot. It has been awful.

But I guess the aspirin kicked in or something Sunday and I felt I just needed to be in God's house, so I drug my carcass into church. I love it there and always love hearing the words and getting a chance to sing where no one can hear me...My voice is not exactly one of a singer! We had a guest pastor from Kissimmee FL on Sunday, and he blew the place up. Started with 10+ minutes of singing praise and worship that just sort of happened. If you don't know one of Christianity's little secrets, then let me share. Praise is our primary weapon in God's arsenal. It is a thermo-nuclear device that will fire up the almighty and get things done. Just read the Old Testament and armies who led with praise and worship onto the battlefield oftentimes did not have to raise a sword and still destroyed the opposing army.

Well, we did that and then this pastor led right off with talking about how tithing or not tithing is a declaration as to whether you really believe or not. He said it is more than a test but shows the surrender of one's control to our king. Well, that was it for me. I had been praying about it and I was hearing the truth. Tithe! Now here's the private part I'll share. For years I have prayed about this or that. And do you know how sometimes you sort of hear his voice? Like immediately before you even say what you want to say you hear something or a thought forms? Happen to any of you? Well for me, for years, I have heard one word, and that word is TITHE. I'll lift up Kathy for healing or the farm for protection and always, that thought forms, or I think I just heard it...Are you tithing? Not kidding, it happens like that for me.

Well Sunday when I felt and heard it, I opened up the church app and I tithed. I didn't hesitate I just did it. I did not check any balances or try and determine if by tithing I wouldn't be able to buy a this or that. No, I just knelt at the foot of the throne, the throne which will soon judge me, and I tithed. I told God I was sorry for being selfish and please accept my apology and forgive me.

I came home Sunday and just fell into a deep cycle of pain and weakness from whatever sickness is affecting me. I thought, well, I think this is it, I will soon go home. I started making plans to leave Kat and the world just like you would if you were certain you were dying. I could not get up out of the chair I sat in on Sunday, I didn't have the strength, so I just sort of slept there. I lost my appetite, and my attitude just sank into a pretty dark place. I got a little angry with God and I literally told him that I did not feel him anywhere around and how could he allow me to suffer this way. I told him to take me, and I said some unkind things to him. I asked how he could let preachers run about saying that tithing would break chains, lead to healing, and all the rest when it seemed to be killing me!

Kathy was scared watching her husband decline from 5-6 weeks ago lifting weights and walking everywhere to one who could not lift a glass of water, and I couldn't. So, she reached out all over for help unbeknownst to me. It takes 6 months to get into a rheumatology clinic, so she was threatening to call an ambulance. I did not feel I would survive the week and wanted to be home when I passed, so I was fighting her on it. I did take a moment in the middle of all that suffering to ask God to please somehow heal me, and if there was any chance allow me to go to my Army reunion in Dallas because I wanted to see my friends again before I passed. I prayed over that, then I sort of gave up on the idea of having any future.

Then, Monday we got an appointment with Tri-State Arthritis and Rheumatology for Tuesday morning! My personal doctor also called and asked if I could come in beforehand. I somehow got ahead of six months of people and was actually seen Tuesday morning. They did a workup on me and right on the spot diagnosed me with Rheumatoid Arthritis that had a vicious onset but very likely also had something called "Long Covid". Most of my joints are under attack from my own immune system and would have crippled me or worse, had it not been discovered when it was.

They gave me a long-lasting very high dosage of steroids and set a follow-up appointment for the middle of October. They said I would start improving very quickly and that afterward depending on whether they find it is actual RA or Long Covid, could treat me for either and I could live a normal life. Are you hearing me? Do you understand what just happened here? I was at the bottom, at what I thought was the end of this soldier's life and I was mentally transitioning. But I asked God to heal me. I asked him to do it miraculously or otherwise, but please heal me, and he has.

As of my writing, I have gained at least half my strength back and am mostly out of pain.

Looking at the sequence of events here:

For years God has been telling me to tithe again
I have been ignoring him mostly.
I fell out of health and was declining fast.
I do believe I would have died in a week, maybe two max.
He reached out to me several times through preachers with the same message all recently.
Finally, this past Sunday, I heard his call with my heart, and I tithed.
Then I gave up hope but prayed anyway for healing.
Two days later I am typing this message, a man on the mend. I am healing and getting stronger!

God wasn't gone when I asked him where he was. He was setting things up to heal me.
When I was starting to give up on him, he ignored that and got me an impossible appointment.

I now feel it is important to someone out there to share this experience, because you, too, are holding back.

Hallelujah, Father, thank you for not giving up on me when I seemed to be giving up on you!

73
Medical Corner / Army student pilot suffers cardiac arrest
« on: August 23, 2023, 03:43:38 PM »
STUDENT AT FORT NOVOSEL GOES INTO CARDIAC ARREST IN THE COCKPIT | INVESTIGATION WON’T TAKE PLACE
August 23, 2023 by Sam



A student in flight school at Fort Novosel (formerly Fort Rucker) went into cardiac arrest while he was behind the controls in midflight, and the various messages I’m getting from students, instructors and other senior members within the chain of command paint the same picture with different conclusions.

on Friday, August 18, a student pilot was flying NOE (Nap of the earth is a low altitude flight used by military aircraft to avoid enemy detection and attack in a high-threat environment) when he suddenly slumped over the controls. There was a second student pilot who jumped into action and pulled him off of the controls while the IP (Instructor Pilot) took over and was able to safely land on the stage field.

The second student immediately began performing CPR on the first student while the IP performed emergency shutdown. The paramedics immediately began life saving measures after he was pulled from his seat. He was medevac’d to the hospital in Dothan with his stick buddy, the second student, riding along with him. They were able to resuscitate him enroute, and yes, they used a defibrillator (this is an important note for later).

I think we all have the same suspicions. If you’ve been living on planet earth in the last two years and aren’t aware of the abnormal amount of young Americans dropping dead, then you’re one of the fortunate ones who’s managed to insulate themselves from literally every external media source available. You may still be in denial about it being attributed to the COVID vaccine, and you may even be stupid enough to pin it on climate change, but you’re aware that deaths are increasing nonetheless.

Why I say all of this is because of my concern that USAACE (U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence) will NOT be conducting an investigation into the incident. Why? Because it’s being labeled as a medical event and not a “precautionary landing.”

A precautionary landing is from any sort of issue that is deemed detrimental to the aircraft itself and would potentially cause the aircraft to have issues in the future. This was a medical event though, therefore an investigation isn’t warranted.

Therein lies the next issue. Students in the basic course, along with those in WOAC (Warrant Officer Advanced Course), are being told this was a medical event and nothing more. In fact, students in the basic course being debriefed on what happened were told the student pilot “became unconscious” and have not officially been told it was attributed to a cardiac arrest. One of the students who messaged said they had a brief safety stand down while praising the Army’s new emergency response procedure and told me “there’s no real news or tragedy to report.” Every message from a student included the words “unresponsive” or unconscious” but nothing about a heart attack or cardiac arrest. One of the DACs (civilian) told me “we got a brief today; they aren’t saying heart attack, but he lost consciousness and was air medevac’d to Dothan.”

Instructors and cadre told a different story, however. One member of cadre told me, “yes, a student in Common Core had a heart attack. Yes, he was revived after 11 minutes.” A couple of other messages echoed this statement. Then I spoke to a member of the medical response team. This person told me from start to finish, the student was gone for a total of 18 minutes. He was, indeed, revived with a defibrillator, and he factually went into cardiac arrest. This person flat out said he was dead and brought back to life.

The students are not being told accurate details, while the chain of command is refusing to investigate it based on it being a medical event not related to the aircraft. The students should know what took place in that cockpit. EVERYONE should know what happened in the cockpit. The military recently admitted that myocarditis has spiked after the COVID vaccine was mandated. This is not new information to anyone who follows us, as we’ve shown proof of this for a year and a half now. These events shouldn’t be brushed over or swept under the rug, but the DOD’s official stance is that the vaccine is “safe and effective,” therefore don’t ask questions and just get it. Covering it vaccine related events is not a a coordinated event; it’s an ideology. Flag officers know exactly what to do when this stuff happens, and they carry out their purpose with swift resolve.


74
Intel / NATO Hotspot: The Savaki gap
« on: August 18, 2023, 09:20:21 AM »
Pay attention to this narrow strip of land

The Savaki gap. The US Army is currently there...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/suwalki-gap-nato-s-eastern-european-weak-spot-against-russia/vi-AA1frt9g?ocid=socialshare#details

76
D.O.T. / As we march down the road to WW3...
« on: August 05, 2023, 11:19:25 AM »
The Russian Ukranian/western allies war is expanding.
This is the first attack on a Russian commercial port. It looks like Zelensky is flexing its muscles with all this Western backing. I doubt it will be received well by the Russians.


Russian Port Attacked

A Russian warship in the Black Sea appeared to be damaged yesterday by Ukrainian sea drones, temporarily disrupting oil and grain exports near the Novorossiysk port, roughly 60 miles east of Crimea. The port is responsible for exporting about 2% of the world's oil supply. The attack marks the first time Ukraine struck a commercial Russian port since the two countries began fighting nearly 18 months ago.

 

Tension in the Black Sea has increased in recent weeks, with Russia hitting numerous food export facilities in Ukraine after suspending its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative last month. Russia had warned Ukraine it would no longer guarantee the safe passage of vessels in the corridor. The Black Sea Grain Initiative previously enabled over 32 million tons of corn, wheat, and other grains to flow from the Black Sea to much of the globe in the last year.

77
This is so bizarre! Why are we so focused on all this dysfunctional and mentally ill people who can't decide what sex to be???

and

How does any of that relate to winning wars?

Any questions about why the military can't meet recruitment goals? A second grader could see what is wrong with all this LBGT nonsense.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/gaetz-stumps-air-force-general-on-gender-identity-labels-i-m-not-really-sure/ar-AA1e5pNm?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=0156419f07a24ecea9610f091a588df4&ei=13

78
Adventure / Building a Gladiator for adventure
« on: July 17, 2023, 01:03:54 PM »
Up to this point, I have been reducing weight in a failed attempt to give me the illusion of more power.

So, I did get rid of a bunch of stuff I wouldn't use anyway and replaced those items with things that would work, while reducing weight.

But after some threads here and on my website, I'm tossing in the towel. I will not be able to get this JT to perform to what I deem as acceptable standards with this V6 engine no matter if I saw off the whole back end aft of the windshield. The little motor just doesn't have truck-like torque... period!

I have decided to just live with it for now.

Before I completely soak my crying towel, I decided to just start using the JT as is with respect to the power plant situation and get to exploring. So, from here on I will be adding weight and miles to the thing instead, and perhaps toss a hemi in there at some future date.

To see how it will do, I will be leaving on a short trip into the Appalachian Mountains in a week to do as many trails and nights as my better half will permit. First I promised her a week at Hilton Head where we can soak in the sun and get fat and become lazier, but then it's off to the hills.

For the fun part of the trip, I decided to add a rooftop tent and bed rack assembly for the wilderness overnights.

My selections were a FishBone full-size rack and a brand new IKamper 2.0 full-size tent. I placed paid for it today and will pick up tomorrow, then mount it all up on Wednesday.

We tried out the IKamper mini, a 2-person tent coming in at 125 lbs, but settled on the larger 4-person tent @ 160 lbs. Pictured is the mini. My full-size sky camp is on the bottom shelf.

IKamper is now building the 3.0 models at $4K+. High-Lift off-road still had several brand new 2.0's in stock and I was able to score one of them at a discounted price.

The one on the bottom is mine.

79
Faith Discussion / Good advice
« on: July 07, 2023, 09:35:43 AM »
So true (And biblical)

80
Adventure / Adventure gear
« on: July 04, 2023, 12:06:43 AM »
This year marked the first one in years where my back hasn't limited my activities. Thanks to another spine surgery, my third since the 1980's, I am back 100%.
Although I have aged quite a bit since the first time I broke my back, my zeal to get out has not decreased. You all may have noticed that my wife and I have been hiking quite a bit this year, hitting state parks in Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana.
It seems we are building on the theme of getting out and with each hike, we are extending the time and distance on the trail. In support of that effort, I am doing several things. First, I have increased my daily workouts to include more cardio along with core and back strengthening. That is coming along quite nicely, although my worn-out knees are protesting!

In the technology realm, I recently purchased several navigation tools. I own the Jeep-supplied Off-road-X software which uses GPS and cell phone towers to navigate us while off-road and in the Jeep. For the phone, I installed a cool App called "All Trails." That app has thousands of trails and maps available to call up and use to navigate along trails all over the continent. I noticed that the supplied maps at the parks are all pretty much garbage and pretty inaccurate. The app helps.

In follow-on posts, I'll detail individual pieces of kit and give my reasons for selecting them.
Finally, we are acquiring equipment. We do fun little trips to REI or outfitter stores to pick up an item or two a week to flesh out our hiking kit. Today I picked up two Osprey day packs. A small 24 liter for her and a 38L for me. I carry extra stuff for the "what-ifs" we seem to be running into.

82
How a dysfunctional mission in the Caribbean became 'the pivotal point' for the creation of US Special Operations Command
Story by insider@insider.com (Stavros Atlamazoglou) • Yesterday 6:27 PM


In October 1983, US troops invaded Grenada, a small island in the Caribbean.
While it was an overall success, the operation had missteps that lead to failures and casualties.
Those problems helped spur the creation of US Special Operations Command several years later.

The 4 most dangerous missions American troops carried out 79 years ago on D-Day
The D-Day invasion was the largest seaborne invasion in history and a turning point in World War II.
By the end of the Normandy campaign, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians had been killed or wounded.
The greatest risks were borne by American troops who arrived in the first wave, seized clifftop artillery, and set up balloons to defend against aerial attacks.
See more stories on Insider's business page."Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well-trained, well-equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely."

As the sun set on the blood-stained beaches of Normandy, France on June 6, 1944, Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's message to the thousands of Allied troops dispatched to carry out the largest amphibious landing in military history rang true.

The invasion, codenamed Operation Neptune and remembered as D-Day, sent roughly 156,000 British, Canadian, and American troops to the Nazi-occupied French coast by air and sea, beginning the multi-month Battle of Normandy and the liberation of Western Europe from Hitler's Wehrmacht.

Today, the US special-operations community operates like a well-oiled machine, rescuing hostages and taking down terrorist leaders whenever and wherever needed. To get to that level of capability, America's commandos have had to make mistakes and learn bloody lessons.

The pivotal point for their development came during a mission in the Caribbean nearly 40 years ago, when competing commands and conflicting priorities created disarray on the ground and prompted significant change in the way the US special-operations forces were organized and led.

The 1980s were a transitional period for the US special-operations community. In April 1980, an operation to rescue US hostages in Tehran, known as Operation Eagle Claw, had failed, leaving several US troops dead.

Eagle Claw went awry for several reasons, including an overly complex plan and poor coordination between units that had little experience working together, but it pushed the Pentagon to create Joint Special Operations Command in December 1980.

JSOC brought the top special-operations units, including Delta Force and SEAL Team 6, under one roof. Three years later, JSOC faced one of its first major challenges.

In September 1983, turmoil within the communist government of Grenada, including the killing of the prime minister by a rival faction, alarmed the Reagan administration, which was already concerned about Grenada's relations with Cuba and the Soviet Union.

Claiming a need to protect some 600 American medical students on the island, the US military intervened in October, launching Operation Urgent Fury alongside security forces from several Caribbean nations. According to Maj. Gen. Richard Scholtes, the first commander of Joint Special Operations Command, US military officers involved in the planning soon butted heads.

In mid-October, the leaders of US Atlantic Command and JSOC were both tasked with developing plans to invade the island and capture key targets, setting the stage for future disagreements. (The Pentagon eventually assigned Atlantic Command to lead the operation.)

The operation was soon expanded to include the US Marine Corps, which required a shuffling of units and their assigned targets.

According to Scholtes, other factors complicated the planning. The CIA was unable to determine if an under-construction runway on the island was long enough to support US military aircraft. The State Department also insisted that political prisoners held at Richmond Hill Prison be freed, adding a difficult assault mission to JSOC's list.

The US special-operations side of the operation began tragically when four members of the elite SEAL Team 6 drowned in heavy seas while trying to conduct a reconnaissance mission on the under-construction runway two days before the main invasion kicked off on October 25.

The invasion itself began with a misstep, with all of the assault forces arriving "separately, late, and in the most undesirable order," Philip Kukielski, author of "The US Invasion of Grenada: Legacy of a Flawed Victory," wrote in a recent issue of the Air Commando Journal.

Early on October 25, Rangers from the 1st and 2nd Ranger Battalions captured Porto Salines International Airport with a combat jump under heavy fire. Meanwhile, frogmen from SEAL Team 4 captured the smaller Pearls airport and held it until they were relieved by Marines.

A task force of Delta Force operators, Rangers, and helicopters from the elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment also attacked Fort Rupert and Richmond Hill Prison. In Fort Rupert, US commandos captured several members of the island's leadership, but the attempt to release political prisoners at Richmond Hill prison failed after the task force encountered extremely heavy fire from the ground.

SEAL Team 6 operators captured the Radio Free Grenada station but soon came under assault from Grenadian forces in armored vehicles. The SEALs retreated to the sea and were eventually picked up by US ships. Another SEAL Team 6 element tried to rescue Paul Scoon, Grenada's governor-general, from his mansion but was pinned down by Grenadian mechanized infantry for over 24 hours before Marines relieved them.

Although US forces successfully completed Operation Urgent Fury in four days, the US special-operations units involved faced many difficulties. The lack of credible intelligence and poor cooperation between units caused casualties and failures.

US special-operations troops took "a disproportionate number" of the casualties, according to Kukielski, and Scholtes later wrote that the mission "came so very close to being a complete disaster."

Urgent Fury was pulled into a debate about the organization of the Pentagon that had begun long before US troops landed in Grenada.

Spurred on by testimony from Scholtes in 1986, lawmakers created US Special Operations Command as a new unified combatant command, led by a four-star commander, to bring the special-operations community together and elevate its status within the Pentagon.

Formally established in 1987, SOCOM, which now oversees JSOC, has been central to many US military operations, but its formation wasn't a given. The Pentagon was lobbying hard against it.

"The Pentagon was waging a frontal and rear assault in opposition to the creation of a special operations command," William Cohen said in the mid-2000s, according to Kukielski's article.

Cohen, a senator at the time who later served secretary of defense, was a namesake of the Nunn-Cohen Amendment that brought SOCOM to life.

Without Scholtes' testimony, SOCOM "might not have happened, or we might have created a command with only two or three stars," Cohen added. "Once he testified on what took place in Grenada — that was the pivotal point."

SOCOM was put to the test for the first time in 1987, when SEALs, Naval Special Warfare Combatant-Craft crewmen, and the Night Stalkers of the 160th SOAR began Operation Prime Chance.

For nearly two years, the American commandos worked to keep Iranian forces from interrupting the movement of oil tankers through the Persian Gulf. The operation was a success and much-needed proof that the military's different special-operations tribes could play together.

Today, the US special-operations community is arguably the most capable in the world. Its rise to the top hasn't been easy, but the lessons learned in Grenada and the operations since then have made it better and more effective.

84
Intel / Russia becoming particuliarly dangerous
« on: June 26, 2023, 11:20:50 AM »
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russians-drop-chemical-munitions-on-ukraine-s-armed-forces-but-wind-blows-toward-russian-occupiers/ar-AA1d0xJK?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=b8195ad91fc347b089ec1650126cdb8e&ei=22

We have the charge of the Wagner group of 25,000 troops, a BlackWater kind of Army, toward Moscow.

That was nothing short of a Coup that fizzled out. Apparently, Russian Army units and police simply stood aside while Wagner soldiers marched on. There was some sort of deal struck which involved the removal of Russian supreme commanders, and all that is still unfolding. That is unprecedented and the single greatest challenge to Putin's power since 2000! That was a very big deal.
Then we have what seems like the intentional use of chemical munitions against Ukranian positions.

Just so you can appreciate the magnitude of such an act if Ukraine would have been a NATO member the use of chemical munitions would have uncorked the terrible genie bottle. It very likely could have led to the use of a tactical nuclear strike from us in retaliation. We tend to see chem agents the same as a small nuke. Very powerful and absolute in their killing effect, however still not the dam buster. Leaves the smallest of opportunities to back away before everything flies.

I doubt that people can sense just how dangerous this is at the moment. The Russian military must be desperate to use such a weapon. As if Putin gave them the order to win or it's their heads or something like that (Just speculating).

With the Wagner group now redeploying into Belarus, the disorganized and poorly led Russian Army is set up for a massive defeat at the hands of the western-supplied Ukrainians. This summer is going to be an explosive one to be sure. We are on the cusp of a big win for Ukraine, which could possibly lead to them crossing right into Russia because of all the vengeance and hatred generated so far. That could and would probably lead to the use of nuclear weapons, I think.

85
D.O.T. / A.I. Our world is changing so fast
« on: June 22, 2023, 07:23:03 PM »
Good primer on where we are right now.

Two years from now, AI will have evolved tremendously. I am not sure we actually understand where this is headed or where we fit into this coming superintelligence.

There is fast approaching a time when human intelligence will be in the minority and far eclipsed by AI.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpRM25pUD8w

86
What are you building? / Think an old fence post is useless?
« on: June 21, 2023, 11:04:06 AM »
https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1316413395886543

The last project is my favorite.

88
Humor, Good Stuff, and Red Neck Practices! / Can you read this?
« on: June 17, 2023, 09:20:50 AM »
I can

90
D.O.T. / UFOs becoming commonplace?
« on: June 06, 2023, 09:50:07 PM »
So, I think something is up here.

Has anyone noticed just how forthcoming the Pentagon is becoming about UFOs? They have admitted they are real and unexplainable. I am surprised and pleased that they are finally admitting it, but the truth is yet to surface. I believe the Pentagon and classified agencies know all about them in great detail.

Recently Russia and China have also reported more credible sightings, and now fighter pilots and airline pilots are starting to talk about these things. Having flown all my life, while serving as a commercial pilot I can point to one instance where I viewed something that seemed to be flying in the same direction one night going down to Houston around 2300. What I thought was odd was that the lights were in the wrong side. Someone mis-installed the position lights or the thing was doing 550 knots in reverse. Anyway, I called Houston Center and asked who was off my right wing slightly above and maybe 20 miles away. They told me there was nothing on the radar. I told them I was looking right at it and they asked me on the air if I wanted to file a UFO report! I said no and that was that.

I noticed that the Vatican is now saying life from other worlds is possible and also a creation of God! The Vatican! They used to burn people for saying things like that.

The British Ministry of Defense admits they are real and documented, and USAF missile guys are now coming forth telling how UFOs rendered ICBM warheads ineffective. Actually, one summer two entire wings of Minuteman 1's were disabled in two incidents over a 10-day span.

So I think something is up. I think the cat is about to be let out of the bag.

The evidence is piling up. One source I read claimed UFO sightings are now cresting 10,000 per year and most are no longer investigated.

We have the release of the Project blue book report. In that unclassified document, there is all sorts of information actually documenting otherworldly races!

I'm very interested to see what is coming, and with the frequency and quality of these sightings, I expect A UFO and its occupants to attend a major league baseball game this summer!

91
D.O.T. / Sad...
« on: June 05, 2023, 09:56:20 AM »
We are in so much trouble...

92
Intel / Declining birth rates
« on: June 03, 2023, 09:45:06 AM »
Birth rates are declining.

This is not a fluke, nor is it a singular event. It is a worldwide phenomenon. Whereas a decade+ ago we were talking about a world with 9 billion people, we have actually been decreasing and now increasingly in well-developed countries. China is in a free fall. A labor-driven economy, that spells a looming disaster. In the case of China, there may be a pearl in the oyster in that with fewer and fewer workers to man the factories that drive the economic engine, there may be more pressure on the military, making it more difficult for them to wage an imperialistic war. Third-world countries continue to produce children but also suffer from huge infant death rates. The downside of the third world problem is that they tend to migrate in huge numbers during famine or war, sometimes swamping the receiving country's ability to provide the care and shelter they need.

Japan's birth rate hits record low; fertility rate falls for seventh straight year.

The number of newborns in Japan fell to 77,747 babies in 2022, down 5% from 2021 and the lowest level on record. The fertility rate—the average number of children a woman gives birth to in a lifetime—fell to 1.26, the lowest since 2005. The population shrank for the 16th consecutive year, as the number of deaths rose 9% to 1.57 million.

93
Adventure / Hocking Hills State Park, Ohio
« on: June 02, 2023, 07:27:15 PM »
Hocking Hills is an ancient system of gorges, caves, waterfalls, and shear rock walls. It is a truly awe-inspiring place that you would think is more like what you'd expect to find in the western Sierra's or the Rockies.

https://ohiodnr.gov/go-and-do/plan-a-visit/find-a-property/hocking-hills-state-park

We hiked there for two days on a multitude of trails to various caves and waterfalls. The walks vary from wheelchair accessible to very difficult scrambling up and over rim rock and steep trails.


94
Adventure / Lake Kincaid, Kentucky
« on: May 22, 2023, 11:22:04 PM »
A couple of weeks ago we hiked Lake Kinkaid while we were checking it out as a possible overnight campsite for an upcoming overnight with the little people of our family.

95
Faith Discussion / Satanism is growing in America
« on: May 22, 2023, 01:27:27 PM »
https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/peopleandplaces/what-goes-on-inside-the-satanic-temple/vi-AA1bwRHk?ocid=msedgntp


Purpose of this meeting, I believe is to allow people to reverse their childhood Christian associations such as Childhood baptism.

...In America!

96
Politics/Know the Facts / Trouble on the horizon for Canadians??
« on: May 16, 2023, 12:08:42 PM »
A survey says that at least 1/5th of all Canadians feel they would be better off as a part of the United States. Canada is a socialist state, unfortunately. Trudeau is a fascist and a communist and is starting to come out of the closet, so to speak, in the way he is going after protesters, the truckers in particular. If he is not careful, he just may touch off a revolution up there. That won't be good for anyone, but seeing some parts of Canada become America would surely be good for the US and for freedom in general. I'd surely welcome it!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/separatists-fed-up-with-trudeau-want-province-to-break-away-from-canada-become-51st-state/ar-AA1bfyrn?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=bb26c8ceaecb42908ad365b39aac701a&ei=13

97
Logical, but Mad
David Carlin

FRIDAY, MAY 12, 2023

A note from Robert Royal: As Professor Carlin argues convincingly today, we’re living in a time when our cultural elites make plausible, logical arguments for things that are absolutely crazy. And it’s not easy to argue them out of assumptions that have virtually become religious dogmas for them. But we have to keep up the effort both for our sake – and for theirs. And one way we do so on this site is by examining both the madness we see all around us and the mistaken views of the human person and the world on which it rests – and that have enabled them to become so prominent. Perseverance in the face of much that’s disturbing has to become an even more prominent virtue for us now. At The Catholic Thing, we’re prepared to persevere, every day and in every way needed to fight these battles.

You can draw a straight line from the beginning of the sexual revolution to that weird phenomenon, transgenderism, and to that even weirder subsection of transgenderism, “non-binary”-ism.  The later developments in this insane course followed from the earlier with an inevitability resembling the system of Euclidean geometry.

 

The sexual revolution (at least in its American edition) commenced in the early 1960s.  At first, it seemed a naughty but relatively harmless thing.  It was college boys and girls choosing to go to bed with one another while at the same time demanding that their elders, i.e., parents and college authorities, either approve or at least tolerate this breach of the rules of conventional (and Christian) morality.

“What harm does it do society,” these boys and girls asked, “if on a consensual basis, we share intimate sexual affection with one another?  Keep in mind that we love one another, and we always use contraception.”

Of course “love” soon became a euphemism for a variety of sexual intimacy that was more lustful than loving; and the revolution quickly spread off-campus; and not everybody took the trouble to use contraception; and before long America saw an epidemic of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and births.  Not many years passed before unmarried parenthood and fatherless children became common features of the American scene.

Quite logically, this led to a new “appreciation” of the merits of abortion.  Hitherto abortion had usually been seen as an unmitigated evil, a kind of homicide.  Now it came to be seen as a necessary evil.  After all, how could Americans have a moral regime of sexual freedom if they didn’t have abortion as a back-up when mistakes were made?

Soon the Supreme Court got into the action by “finding” a right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution – thereby proving, despite the fact that the Court was made up of “nine old men,” that it could be as “with it” as any college sophomore.

The Court was a kind of Christopher Columbus, finding a new legal/moral continent.  The Court was even greater than Columbus.  The Italian navigator did no more than discover a continent that pre-existed his discovery, while the Court (or at least 7 of its 9 members) simultaneously found – and created – a new legal/moral continent: a more God-like than Columbus-like achievement.

The principle of sexual freedom having been secured, it made no sense that married men and women should be bound by their marriage vows.  And so in one state after another the old divorce laws were succeeded by laws permitting “no-fault” divorce.  By the mid-1970s, getting divorced in the United States was, legally speaking, if not always psychologically speaking, as easy as falling off a log.

Likewise, it made no sense, sexual freedom for heterosexuals having been achieved, that homosexuals should be denied a similar freedom.  And so the gay rights movement was born, demanding not just freedom for gays and lesbians, but respect as well, a place of public honor in society.

This led – how could it not have led? – to a demand for same-sex “marriage,” or “marriage equality” as progressives agreed to call it.  In 2015, the Supreme Court, this time “with it” by a 5-4 margin, made another one of its great creation/discoveries: it “found” that the U.S. Constitution includes a right to same-sex “marriage.”  This was a right that the makers of that earth-shaking document had apparently written into it in invisible ink, which explains everybody’s inability to see the right prior to progressives examining it in the ultraviolet light of post-Christian wisdom.

At that point some of us, lagging seriously behind the times and clearly not on “the right side of history,” said to ourselves, “Well, all that is very bad, but at least now it’s finished.  Now we can return to normality.  After all, what more can they ask for?”

We underestimated our enemies.  Hardly had Barack Obama and Joe Biden finished jumping with joy at the great discovery of a Constitutional right to gay marriage than our progressive brothers and sisters announced the launching of another great crusade, the campaign to make the world safe for transgenderism.  The gay rights movement became the LGBT movement.

And why not?  If the gay rights movement had taught us that, when it comes to erotic love, we need pay no mind to nature’s apparent intention that erotic love is something to be enacted only between men and women, not between men and men or women and women, why should we pay any attention at all to the sexual equipment that nature (or God) has provided us with?

If my genital equipment has no legitimate vote in telling me whom I should love, why should it have a vote or a voice in telling me anything at all?   Why should my genital equipment bind me in any way regarding either sexual behavior or sexual identity?  Why should it tell me which rest room to use?  Why should it dictate which swim team or wrestling team, male or female, I should belong to?

Further, if (in a truly progressive society) a man can say, “I am a woman” and a woman can say “I am a man,” why shouldn’t somebody say, “I am non-binary, I am genderless, I am neither and man nor a woman”?  The culturally dominant forces in America today are – with  a furious logic – piling absurdity on absurdity.

Who knows what comes next?  If you have a lively imagination, you may be able to predict the future that progressives have in mind for us.  Don’t dwell on this, however.  It may give you bad dreams.

On the bright side, one of our fellow Catholics, Joe Biden, is president.

Oops!  I forgot.  Biden is the captain of the team promoting this insane agenda.

Don’t despair.  Our Catholic bishops, brave as Joan of Arc and standing like Horatio at the bridge, fearing nothing but the displeasure of God, will save us from this anti-Christian and anti-civilization madness. Won’t they?

98
Build Threads / Don's 2022 Ram 3500
« on: May 02, 2023, 09:27:38 PM »
OK, OK, go ahead and get it all out of your systems!

I buy a different type of oil and the wolves here are gonna be all over me.

I'm a big boy and I can take it

(But not without some firing and banning) ;-)


Yea, so now that I sold my D-Max truck, I'd like to "Personalize my truck some to fit me and my personality.

Duane is texting me three times a day showing me Calri suspension stuff and Method wheels and, well, like an alcoholic in a bar, it's hard to resist it all the time

Well,I do think the stuck can benefit from a few tasteful mods while keeping it trip and tow-ready.

I have started off with a couple of things which I have ordered

Inbound are Aeries folding, electric running boards and a Bak-Flip tonneau cover.

I actually need those two things because oddly enough the stock Ram 3500 is sort of tall

99
NATIONAL RANGER MEMORIAL FOUNDATION
PO Box 762
Columbus, GA 31902
Fellow Rangers:
In my capacity as Chairman of the National Ranger Memorial Foundation (NRMF), I am
informing all of a directive the NRMF received from the management of Ft Benning, GA
(specifically. Col Colin Mahle, Garrison Commander), directing the Foundation remove specific
names from our RANGER Monument/Memorial. These names are Col John S Mosby 1992
RHOF, Mosby memorial paver, Quantrill memorial paver, George Bowman memorial paver
with reference to BG Morgan and Jackson Bowman paver with reference to BG Morgan. While
all of this is wrapped in the legal promulgation of a law passed by the Pelosi 117th Congress,
importantly the action directed at me is an interpretation of said law by a Naming Committee
established by the DOD and the OSECARMY management and passed down to installation level
management. This is the case with Ft Benning and our RANGER Memorial.
Implementation of dramatic/radical edicts and shifts in policy at issue here are frequently
accompanied by inaccuracies, (stupid) interpretations, injustices to survivors and a strong
political slant offensive to substantial sectors of society. The deceased named in this directive,
the Mosby family and the Bowen family in particular, are victims of woefully targeted
legislation enacted by the Pelosi, WOKE, 117th Congress. Interpretations of this legislation
have received the slavish obedience by both civilian and military management at the
national level as passed down, apparently without verification, to our installations. For
example, and wrongly identified with the Confederacy, Gen Morgan was a BG in the
Continental Army under Gen Washington and the hero of the Battle of Cow Pens against the
British. Gen Morgan had passed away 57 years before the start of the Civil War. The injustice to
the name of John S Mosby and his descendants is extraordinary and thoughtless.
Notwithstanding his extraordinary combat record, Ambassador Mosby, a staunch anti- slavery
activist, was appointed by President Grant as US Ambassador to China later in his distinguished
service to our Nation.
This being the case, the officers and board of the NRMF decided to implement all demands
made by the installation management (Col Mahle) to limit visible damage to the monument
through unilateral action verbalized by the Ft Benning Garrison Commander. The Mosby
Paver, Quantrill Paver, George Bowman and Jackson Pavers have been removed. The Mosby
inscription on the 1992 Ranger Hall of Fame stone tablet has been appropriately covered so as
not to deface the other names accompanied on the same tablet.
I’ll close with a message I recently received from an affiliate Ranger:
“Removing bricks and etching out names will not promote peace within our Nation nor will
renaming installations and covering headstones heal us or ensure equality.”
Feel free to contact me individually or Col Mahle [colin.p.mahle.mil@army.mil ], Ft Benning
Garrison Commander, with concerns or thoughts.
This is not the last word.
Rangers Lead the Way!
Joseph S Stringham
BG, US ARMY ret
Chairman, National Ranger Memorial Foundation

Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 43
SimplePortal 2.3.6 © 2008-2014, SimplePortal