Navy pilots describe encounters with UFOs

Interesting.

Without Comment

Okay, this is odd.  Maybe some of you sailor-types can shed some light on this.  It seems like the Navy has been getting some UFO sightings recently.

Don't Be A Target

 It seems that the IDF has razed a high rise building in Gaza that housed the intelligence arm of Hamas.  That sounds like a legitimate military target.  As it turned out, that building also held off ices of the Associated press and al-Jazeera.

The media is, of course, outraged.  They doth protest too much.

If I remember IDF protocols accurately, they probably called everyone and told them to get out, because the building was coming down.  If the AP doesn't want their offices bombed, perhaps they should seek more suitable accommodations.  Like, for example, a building that doesn't house Hamas offices.

I'm just saying.  

Turmoil

 The new CDC guidance says that fully vaccinated people can eschew the mask, and some folks are resisting the guidance.  Not for health reasons, but evidently, the mask has become virtue-signalling icon.  I've heard on some media that until yesterday, the liberals thought that NOT wearing a mask signaled that the person with the open face was selfish, or a *gasp* a conservative.

Well, I am a conservative.

Faucci, Again

 Pore ol' Doc Faucci.  He's now urging "Fully Vaccinated Americans To ‘Make That Transition’ And Stop Wearing Masks Outside."

Hey, Doc, I have news for you.  Many of us stopped wearing masks six or eight weeks ago.  We're done with them.  No one really cares what you think anymore, Doc.  We're done with you.  Please shut up, you are boring is.

In other news, I got the pool pump fixed today, then ran up to the butchers for some good ground meat.  I cooked Belle and I an Oklahoma Onion Burger for lunch.

She has now left the acre, taking the dog to the vet for his yearly rabies and heartworm shot.  When she returns, I'm sure we'll declare Happy Hour.

Y'all have a good weekend.

Funding Palestine

 Over a month ago, the Guardian reported that the biden administration would restore funding to the Palestinians.  

“[We] plan to restart US economic, development, and humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people,” the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said in a statement.

What did they spend it on?  Rockets.  They've been firing a lot of rockets into Israel.

The news everywhere is that Israeli forces are responding with air strikes and artillery. 

Why are we sending money to Palestine?  Everyone knows that they are not going to spend it on humanitarian aid.  They're going to spend it on munitions.  Anyone with a brain knows that.

Oh, wait.

Maricopa County

 Maricopa County, AZ is not in the news, and it should be.  The auditors have found some discrepancies that may suggest that the vote was rigged.  The audit is not complete yet, but they are finding things like databases being deleted, a lack of password protection on key systems, and discrepancies with the actual votes in boxes.

“Do you know how shocking that is? 17.5% discrepancy in a batch is beyond belief.” He added, “In one they’ve got 18 more than there’s supposed to be, which is a 9% discrepancy. Again, if we are to have any confidence in elections in this country, how can we possibly be okay with discrepancies of double digit percentages? It’s absolutely mind boggling, anything above a tiny fraction of a percentage is unacceptable, by the way, unacceptable according to the Federal Elections Commission.”

Elections are won, county by county.  It seems that Maricopa County officials have questions to answer.  There are now serious questions regarding whether of not Joe Biden actually won Arizona.  This won't change the fact that Biden is president, but it should provide a cautionary tale about vote fraud. It also raises questions about Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.  Those audits won't change the current result, but it should provide incentives for the next election.  Elections should be free, fair, and accurate.

As for the current election officials in Maricopa County?  Hanging might be a bit severe, but leading a coup has always been a hazardous occupation..

Death and Taxes

I'm not dead yet, not by a long-shot, so this morning I sat down to do my taxes.  I generally wait until the last minute, and with the deadline being Monday, May 17th, this is early for me.  I procrastinate because I know I owe them money.  No refund for PawPaw.  Bell and I are comfortable, but looking at my tax return I am appalled at how much money I am hit for each year. I am fully retired, and Belle is semi-retired, and our tax burden is north of $15K,,  I am also appalled at what the past administrations have done with my money.  Make no mistake, biden is spending like a drunken sailor, but Trump wasn't much better..

To my mind, the greatest disservice the United States ever played on the population was withholding for income taxes.  You miss a little bit out of each check, but many people use it like an old Christmas Club account.  They expect money back at the end of the year that they can use for luxuries or projects.  If every American taxpayer had to sit down each quarter, do his taxes and send the government a check, the outrage would be immediate and deafening.  It would put every American in the mindset of what Government Money really looks like.

My taxes are done, and filed.  I'll write then a check on Monday, because I understand a concept known as "present value".

Retired Flag Officers Speak OUt

 When you are in the military and reach that rarefied rank where your insignia is a star, you get a flag.  Generals and Admirals are considered Flag Officers and are assumed to have leadership and managrial ability beyond the normal standards.

Active flag officers are constrained by law and ethical considerations from criticizing their commanders publicly.  One simply does not talk bad about the President.  He is the Commander in Chief.  But, once those officers retire, they are free to criticize.   And, a group of such flag officers have signed an open letter criticizing the current state of affairs in the United States.  You can read the whole thing here.  Some of it is quite compelling.  For example.

Without fair and honest elections that accurately reflect the “will of the people” our Constitutional Republic is lost. Election integrity demands insuring there is one legal vote cast and counted per citizen. Legal votes are identified by State Legislature’s approved controls using government IDs, verified signatures, etc. Today, many are calling such commonsense controls “racist” in an attempt to avoid having fair and honest elections. Using racial terms to suppress proof of eligibility is itself a tyrannical intimidation tactic. Additionally, the “Rule of Law” must be enforced in our election processes to ensure integrity. The FBI and Supreme Court must act swiftly when election irregularities are surfaced and not ignore them as was done in 2020. Finally, H.R.1 & S.1, (if passed), would destroy election fairness and allow Democrats to forever remain in power violating our Constitution and ending our Representative Republic.

Boon!  That's not all they want to talk about.  They give a series of bullet-points.  Here's one.

• Using the U.S. military as political pawns with thousands of troops deployed around the U.S. Capitol Building, patrolling fences guarding against a non-existent threat, along with forcing Politically Correct policies like the divisive critical race theory into the military at the expense of the War Fighting Mission, seriously degrades readiness to fight and win our Nation’s wars, creating a major national security issue. We must support our Military and Vets; focus on war fighting, eliminate the corrosive infusion of Political Correctness into our military which damages morale and war fighting cohesion.

Go to the link above and read he whole thing.  It's certainly worth your time.

Cowboy Kent Gets His Cajun On

I've been watching Cowboy Kent Rollins on YouTube for a year or so.  He does outdoor cooking, chuck wagon cooking, and dutch oven cooking.

I first heard of Shrimp and Grits several years ago.  A bunch of Cajun and Creole cooks took it to heart, and made some fantastic dishes out of these two Southern favorites.

Here is Kent's take on it.  Bon Apetit!

Everything Old

 Everything old becomes new again.

I remember the gas lines of he early 70's.  While I earlier attributed it to Jimmy Carter, I was wrong, it happened during the Nixon years.

But, with last week's revelation of a ransom-ware attack on the Colonial pipeline, the east coast is fearing a gasoline shortage, which is fueling a run on the supply of gasoline.  Long lines, stations our of gasoline, it reminds e of the early 70s.

This shortage shouldn't last long.  The pipeline company will figure it out and the petrol will start to flow again.  But, the political operatives will never let a crisis go to waste.

Heh!

Miranda

 In the discussion below, Bob makes a comment that deserves attention.

If I understand correctly a POI does not have the same protections (wouldn't require Miranda, for instance) a suspect has, and once the genie is out of the bottle, I don't trust the system to protect that non-Mirandized (POI) information from being used. Just too tempting.

We generally Mirandize everyone in one form or another.  There is a misconception that  Miranda only applies if a person is being arrested.  That's not true.  Miranda applies to everyone, all the time.  A citizen is never under any obligation to talk with the police, and applies whenever.  While it is certainly true that each agency has a Miranda form that can be used to document the process, the absence of the form doesn't mean that a person does not have Miranda protections.

Sometimes it is in the person't best interest to talk with us.  Other times it is not.  But, we always start the conversation with "You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to.", or words to that effect.

YOU ALWAYS HAVE YOUR MIRANDA RIGHTS.  You do not have to talk to the police if you  do not want to.

One example.  In the early 90s I was working a murder investigation.  We had a corpse in a kitchen, in a suburban neighborhood. The coroner set the time of death at Friday night about 6:00 pm.  We found the body on Monday morning.  During the investigation we did a neighborhood canvass.  We knocked on doors asking the neighbors if they had seen anything suspicious on Friday afternoon.  Some folks wanted to talk with us, some folks didn't.  They all had the right to tell us that they didn't want to talk with us.

Everyone has Miranda right, all the time.  The one exception is in what we call a Spontaneous Declaration.  If a person comes up to me, and tells me that they have committed some heinous offense, then I can arrest based on that declaration.  I didn't ask for it, I wasn't looking for it, it just dropped in my lap, and I can use it.  And, you can believe I am going to bring out a Miranda form.

Basic Investigative Terms.

Bob F asks in comments:

 Somewhat related: I have been skeptical of the term "person of interest" since I first heard it. My suspicious mind has always said it was an end run around legalities when a person is officially considered a suspect, the word "suspect" carrying certain obligations. If you would care to opine at some point down the road I'd definitely be interested in learning.

It's simple.  A suspect is someone suspected of a crime.  Why might we suspect that a particular person did a particular crime?  In this day and age, we have video camera everywhere.  Almost any violent crime a person ight commit is generally captured on a video camera of some type.

Back in the day it was a little harder.  For example, in the early to mid 80s I was an investigator, and I got to know the methods used by a certain portion of my criminal element.  There was one career burglar who always went in through the bedroom window, left the screen propped against the house, and always left through the front door.  He stole things that were easy to carry and easy to hock.  If I saw that set of circumstances at a crime scene,  I knew who my suspect was.  He was a guy named Deadeye.  Deadeye always committed burglaries the same way.

A person of interest is not the suspect.  A person if interest is a person who might know the whereabouts of my suspect.  For example, in Deadeye's case, my person of interest was Jerry Wayne.  Jerry Wayne always knew where I might find Deadeye.

In the current case, the cops were looking for a particular Jeep Cherokee.  They knew it was used in the murder of my friend, and they suspected that the vehicle might have evidence inside it.  When they found the car, and stopped it in a traffic stop, the fellow driving it became a person of interest.  As i turns our, he was arrested as and Accessory After The Fact.

As it turns out, I never personally arrested Jerry Wayne, my person of interest.  I arrested Deadeye several times over 20 years and the last I heard from him, he is living in his mother's house and staying out of trouble.  Jerry Wayne died in the early 90s.  Something about a drug deal gone bad and a bullet in his head.I don't know if they ever solved that one.

UPDATE - Jackson Arrested

 According to the Rapides Parish Sheriffs Office, the other suspect in the murder of my friend has been arrested in Baton Rouge.

Jackson was taken into custody without incident and booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Jail.  He will be transported back to Rapides Parish to be booked on the 1st Degree Murder and Attempted 1st Degree Murder charges.

Evidently, the person I talked about this morning (the Person of Interest_ has also been booked on Accessory After The Fact, and Obstruction of Justice.

 Yesterday afternoon, Sheriff’s Detectives and Patrol Deputies were involved in a pursuit, which ended at I-49 south at the Broadway exit, of another person of interest in the investigation.  Cliron Demond Price, 20 of Alexandria, (pictured below) was booked on Accessory After the Fact and Obstruction of Justice in connection with the Liberty Arsenal homicide investigation.  Detectives say their investigation is still ongoing and more charges are possible.  

This is very good news.  Both of the prime suspects are in custody, and the investigation continues. 

Person Of Interest

 The Rapides Parish Sheriffs Office has issued an update on the homicide investigation related to the murder of my friend last week.

In the press release, they tell us that they have located the vehicle used in the crime, and that they have detained a "person of interest".  This confuses many people. A Person of Interest may of may not have participated in the crime, but may have information vital to solving it.  In this case, the vehicle was taken in a traffic stop, and the person behind the wheel is someone they want to talk to.  That parson may or may not be arrested, based on the interview that is sure to follow the traffic stop.

My prayer is that Jackson will be apprehended soon and safely.  The best of all outcomes would be for him to appear at the front door of the Courthouse with an attorney and submit to arrest peacefully.  Any other scenario might become very dangerous for everyone involved.

Obstructing Public Passages

 I'm sure that you all have seen the video from Plano, TX, last week, where BLM /Antifa assholes blocked a public street.  The video went viral.

That one poor cop on the scene, I'm not going to judge him because the video doesn't provide good context.  He was there by himself, and we can hear sirens in the background.  He was probably waiting for backup and trying to keep the protesters criminals separate from the citizens.  I've been there, and sometimes you just try to keep everyone safe until you get some help.

That cop aside, we've seen a great deal of blocking traffic by protesters criminals over the past year.  Most states have laws against obstructing a public passage.  While people have the constitutional right to protest, other people have the constitutional right to go about their daily business.

Louisiana law makes such activity a crime.

§100.1.  Obstructing public passages

A.  No person shall wilfully obstruct the free, convenient, and normal use of any public sidewalk, street, highway, bridge, alley, road, or other passageway, or the entrance, corridor, or passage of any public building, structure, water craft, or ferry, by impeding, hindering, stifling, retarding, or restraining traffic or passage thereon or therein.

This law was used to great effect several years ago during civil unrest in Baton Rouge.  THe police let everyone know that protesting was one thing, but obstructing public passage as a crime, and if they violated the law, they went to jail.  Baton Rouge PD arrested a few that got in the street, and the rest of them decided to stay on the grass.

I see that the Texas Attorney General has come forward, letting people know that such activity is a crime, and he intends to crack down on lawlessness.

These laws are on the books for a reason.  Enforce them.