Be Ready

Via Pastor Lusted: "Uncle Volodoya is strong!" says little Obama, sitting syriassly on Putin's lap. 

Have you noticed how no-one any longer cares, or thinks it odd, that the US is backing Al Qaeda in Syria? I always thought we were fighting a war against them, I guess The Weather took their place.

Anyway, we were, until the Russians started killing them all, and their evil twin Caliphate. Then we weren't.

Good job, foreign policy geniuses.

LSP

Hello Rainbow Clowns, Meet Russia

Russia's intervened in Syria, to bolster Assad and protect its interests. This is America's response, in the words of US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter:

…it’s important to see if we can get the Russians in a position where they are coming to understand the contradiction in the position they now have and the possibility that by seeing a political transition and defeating extremism is something you have to pursue in parallel to succeed in Syria, maybe they could make a constructive contribution. But they’re not on the path to doing that in the way they do — they are acting now.

Got that? Neither do I. Not to be outdone, John Kerry recommended this, at the UN:

military-to-military de-confliction discussion, meeting, conference, whichever … and several options were agreed to be further discussed…we also agreed that it is imperative to find a solution to this conflict… even as we don’t yet have a resolution with respect to some critical choices in that political solution, we think we have some very specific steps that may be able to help lead in the right direction. That needs to be properly explored… And so, we finally agreed we have a lot of work to do.

Russia then proceeded to do this:

You can read some quick analysis here and here, and while you're at it, ask yourself if the most powerful country in the world is being led by a circus crew of rainbow clowns.

LSP

Labor Day Pistol Shoot

To celebrate Labor Day I went to the range for a pistol shoot. I wanted to get more familiar with the Glock 21 and see how the pistol worked with its new Blackhawk SERPA TECH holster. Would the holster improve my accuracy with the famously smooth shooting piece of Austrian engineering achievement? To find out, I lined up against a 12" steel plate at around 20 yards.

Sure enough, the holster worked, and so did the Glock. Encouraged by the satisfyingly swinging plate, I unloaded a few 13 round magazines of .45 ACP against the pockmarked steel opposition. Big fun, then, on my last but one shot, remember to count your rounds, kids, the pistol fired, the plate swung, and a piece of shrapnel  fired back at me at lightning speed. 

I could see it coming, just, and there it was, a bit of steel embedded in my support hand. I looked down at the offender, holstered my gun, and picked the metal out of my hand, as though it was a bad heretic, getting excommunicated from the Church.

I fired off the rest of my Winchester White Box Value Pack against a paper silhouette. That didn't shoot back, fortunately.

Moral of the story? Be careful shooting against steel plates; I wasn't hurt, but that same bit of steel that found my hand could have chosen an eye, which might have made for a much less happy ending, sunglasses notwithstanding.

Watch out for the bears,

LSP

Putin, the New Talleyrand?

Thanks to Drudge, everyone knows that Tony Brenton, former UK Ambassador to Moscow, doesn't see Russian strongman, Vladimir Putin, as a land-grabbing, latter-day Hitler, but as a new Talleyrand. Here's an excerpt from his article in today's Telegraph:

"The 'we must stand up to Putin as we did to Hitler' line is pure schoolboy politics. Putin, of whom I saw a fair amount as UK ambassador to Moscow, is not an ideologically driven fanatic, but much closer to Talleyrand – the calculating, pragmatic rebuilder of his country’s status in the world." 

Talleyrand

You can read the whole thing here, but if Putin is a new Talleyrand, what does that make Obama? You know, the first LGBTQ President who's developed this smart strategy to defeat ISIS by, er, arming ISIS.

Pyramid Power?

Senior Defense Industry analysts have speculated that Beyonce, Jay Z and Obama himself, are in a bizarre "love triangle."

Perhaps the President's distracted.

Kick out the Jams,

LSP