Stuff
Having had multiple cold fronts move through with heavy rains for over a month, it appears that the latest front is going to actually take the local temperature down to around freezing early Monday, so I have been making some preparations.
The Pacific Northwest and Northern California seem to be in a wet cycle, which is good news for them, but their good news is balanced by the bad news in Australia, which has been having destructive bushfires. Both circumstances are part of the effect of a strong El Niño condition.
Ellroon has found a wonderful Photoshop of the Oregon occupation.
65 comments
No problem Bryan. I do understand you very well my friend. I was just having a little fun, albeit at your expense, because I’ve truly had a really crappy couple months. I figured you would understand. 🙂
When I was sent to the USA in the 80’s with my 2 companions, we had to spend several months in preparation. The way the individual States worked. The law’s, rules, customs, language & dialects. Where to go, not to go, how to act, etc. etc. You get the drill. 🙂 This is primarily why (as well as all I learned as an observer in more than a year) I know so much about The USA. It would be fair to say I know more than most Americans about the USA. Example, most I spoke to had no idea it’s a ‘Republic of States’ or what that even meant! And apparently, still don’t. I learned that an easy way to get free beer in SF is to use as a deep Aussie accent and tell jokes about how bad LA or NY are! And so on. 😀
I suffer from “assumed knowledge” syndrome myself, as you know from past explanations of some of my past posts that you correctly made. I do try, but it is difficult to guage just what the audience knows. And “dumbing” things down too much, is insulting. Something I try to avoid. With people I respect that is. 😉 : D
Isn’t it just typical! Now that I have decided to leave, I’ve had the handyman (a good builder I know well actually) here all day fixing the things that needed fixing all the past year! *SIGH*
I just reread my previous comment and realised I make it sound like we were sent to spy. We were sent as a joint USA-Aus assignment. A Fair Trade Agreement isn’t the only one we have with the USA. 🙂 After all, we do have one of your 3 global, “top secret” VLF NBMS (very low frequency nuclear ballistic missile submarine) communication bases here (the top secret is a joke. Like most US secrets, the Russians, Chinese etc. know all about them. It’s why we were on the old Soviets “First Strike” target list. Well, that and the “secret” B52/F117 base/ resupply depot… And the milsat com’s relay… Quite a few reasons come to think of it!) LOL
We basically did some social engineering that US LEO’s could not do, but not too bright Aussie Engineers working temporarily in the USA could. 😀 People do like to brag to foreigners you know. Especially whilst sharing a laugh over several drinks. 😉
I don’t know about you m8, but I learned far more about Humans, human stupidity, naivety, gullibility & cruelty than I really ever wanted to. Sometimes, I really wish I had an erase button. Then, there are other days… 🙂
When I was in the military before you were deployed overseas you received all kinds of information on the ‘host’ country and were assigned a ‘sponsor’ from the unit you were joining to provide one-on-one information. In my command they should have offered the same procedure for the US because there weren’t positions available in the US outside of Alaska.
They have obviously stopped doing that based on the total lack of accurate information given to US troops going to Southwest Asia these days.
We had a reciprocal agreement with Australia in my area of interest [as well as NZ, Canada, & the UK] which people only seemed to notice after Snowden mentioned it. These agreements go back to WWII and have been maintained since then.
I certainly didn’t read what you wrote as being a reference to your targeting the US, only ‘friends’ like Israel do that sort of thing ,,, 😈
There have been days when nuclear annihilation would start to look like a reasonable alternative, but then you happen upon a decent human being – the Sodom & Gomorrah test.
Yes, many Military/Intel arrangements were put in place during & after WW2, some since WW1 even. 🙂
Not surprised you were involved in some. I knew there were many joint USA/AU missions between the 60’s & 80’s especially.
LOL Yeah… Friends! “Keep your enemies close, and your friends closer!” How true it is! 🙂
When I was working in Canberra and we needed to know what the Soviets were up to, we’d ask the Chinese. And vice versa. Of course, there was quid pro quo involved. 😀 If we wanted to know what the USA was up to, the Soviets & Chinese couldn’t wait to tell us! And usually for a dinner and drinks! LOL
Of course you know that whilst our primary mission was to help the USA, we also kept our eye’s & ears open, and may have accidentally ended up somewhere shouldn’t. Typical tourists really. Just like the US personelle sent to help us out. 😀
All part of the game. You know the rule of course: “It’s only illegal if you get caught.”
My explanation was more for the benefit of others here who don’t have our insiders track. 😉 😀
On another note: I have had one bit of surprising luck. I decided to cancel my annual subscription to WPMU DEV that I renewed Dec. Thinking I would have Internet etc. I asked for a refund and explained the situation. Since it would be several months before I can earnestly persue my new biz, I decided the money could be better spent.
They said they would refund my $784, and made me two alternate offers. I decided to take the 2nd offer as I’m not a complete fool:
“Instead of a refund, we can give you an extension of 3 years, this means that you will have a total of 4 years of access to your account, this offer is valued at $2352, but this offer is with continued access.”
Basically, they like my business plan, can see I am serious, and that it is worth a slight investment risk on their part. Which is very nice to know, and gives me incentive. Because seriously… I was close to giving it all up, inspite of all the time & money I have invested. Cut my losses. 🙂
I’m a baaaad man! LOL I was bored, so decided to bait some Trolls on Pinterest. The gun nuts are gutless and just hit & run. To be expected I suppose. So I decided on another group, though with considerable crossover with the gun nut brigade. I spent a few hours double checking my memory with actual peer-reviewed historical documentation. I don’t like to be sloppy. 😀
I posted a simple graphic that stated: “What luck for rulers that men do not think. — Adolf Hitler”
And underneath as the image description, I put:
“And yet another quote from that evil psychotic Christian that should not be true, but history proves that it sadly is. *sigh* nb: Hitler was a Catholic whose troops were blessed by Bishops. They also wore belt buckles that had “In God we Trust!” on them. Curiously, congress decided that this motto, used by many armies throughout history, should be put on US currency in 1956. What a coincidence. Hitler was partially financed by Prescott Bush after all. 🙂 Christians do like to stick together. :D”
And this link:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/08/26/40-problems-with-christianity/
“This is a guest post written by Michael Runyan. Michael is a recently-retired risk analyst for the U.S. government. A former Catholic, he currently works as a freelance writer focusing on critical assessments of the Christian religion.”
I also posted a comment by Clarence Darrow (I learned about him whilst in the USA and spent time in a large Library researching him. I found him fascinating & intelligent.):
” Can any rational person believe that the Bible is anything but a human document? We now know pretty well where the various books came from, and about when they were written. We know that they were written by human beings who had no knowledge of science, little knowledge of life, and were influenced by the barbarous morality of primitive times, and were grossly ignorant of most things that men know today.”
Amen to that!
Well, hopefully tomorrow I’ll have a few bites, nibbles at least! LOL
We were very compartmentalized, so it was really small groups dealing with specific problems. It was necessary to coordinate with others to obtain near continuous coverage of the target. It was considered very bad form to bring up methods, so it was analysis, rather than raw data that was shared. There were things that partners couldn’t obtain because the US wouldn’t even consider sharing the technology involved, which was short-sighted to my mind, but we spent a long time trying to get over the Dulles brothers.
I don’t know, I have never gotten into troll baiting. Most of the time it isn’t much better than shoving sticks into the spokes on wheelchairs. A whole lot of them could probably qualify for disability checks. But someone has to do it or people might begin to believe that they are talking sense. Face it, Trump isn’t a candidate, he’s a Twitter troll…
To make the offer they must see long range profits from what you are proposing to do. The problems you are having getting a decent connection to the ‘Net is the result of short term thinking. Depending on extraction industries is colonial thinking. Colonies provide raw materials, independent economies provide finished products. These days finished products require Internet access.
Yes. Compartmentalization is the norm. It was both a blessing and a curse. Unfortunately, when the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing, unscrupulous people will use that to their advantage and usually cause untold damage. As most Countries discover the hard way. And the honest people just trying to do their job are generally hampered and end up frustrated or worse.
You’re just jealous Bryan because you don’t get Trolled! 😉 😆
Anyway, it was the least violent of the two options I was considering to reduce my frustration levels primarily caused by thoughtless, inconsiderate, myopic morons. 🙂
As for the biz… I honestly don’t know. Truth is m8, I am exhausted. The main reason moving to Queensland is attractive, is that I want to spend a month on a good beach not thinking about anything in particular. However, I know Centerlink has other ideas on that score! So I am considering pulling the rest of my Super which will bankroll me for about a year and telling them to piss off. But that has downsides also. Nothing is simple. Trouble is, I know my mind is not in a good place now, and I am exhausted. Not a good combination for making critical decisions. The old Catch-22 (Thank you Joseph Heller!) 🙂
Check this out Bryan… It was bound to happen. But what do you think of it, as an ex LEO?
http://odditymall.com/justice-caps-hide-your-face-from-surveillance-cameras
First of all the cap – I wear one with 4 very bright LEDs every day because it is easier than remembering to carry a flashlight. I was introduced to them by a relative with night blindness, and they are really handy under a sink. As an avoidance strategy they suck because they make you stand out. drawing attention to you. Frankly I can see LEOs buying and wearing them to avoid citizen photographers. If I was trying to avoid ID, I would use some band-aids. People see and remember the unusual, and that transfers to pictures.
I knew that certain other people had intel I really wanted and needed, but the rules prevented it from happening. I stayed pissed off about it because it made my job more difficult.
Come on, you like messing with the minds of the jerks 😉
Start ups are exhausting. It’s the same as working at least two full time jobs. If you are exhausted, rest up before making any decision. In addition to everything else you have had the aggravation of moving and the failure of the utilities to do their job in a timely fashion. It seems that you have been subjected to a series of failures that are draining your reserves. You really need some beach time to recharge.
Had a feeling you’d say something like that about the cap’s. They use IR LED’s which do screw up camera’s, unless they have IR filters. 🙂
Actually Bryan, if the mindless morons that serve as Trolls these days had minds or intelligence, I would enjoy it! Then again, they probably wouldn’t be Trolls either. At Loaded Mouth between 02 & 04, we got some really tough Trolls! They put up a hell of a fight! Now they were fun! I earned the nickname from the other bloggers & regular’s of “Troll Killer”! I was so proud! Meant more than the Prince Phillip Prize I got (2 actually). LOL Ahhh… The good old days of The Shrubbery… Never thought I’d say that m8! How far we have fallen. 😐
Yeah… There were days in the 80’s when I just wanted to grab a pen pusher by the throat when told “Could take a few days to a week to get that” for info needed from another agency (usually the inept morons @ ASIO, but sometimes a Foreign agency) for something we were sure was going down in a couple days or so! And “few days to a week” was for something marked “urgent & critical”! It’s why so many of us had enough and walked. I decided to work as a real Engineer. Didn’t stop the bastards nagging me into the 90’s though! They think they own your soul forever! They can’t take “F*ck off!! I’m just a normal citizen!” For an answer! Pffft!!
Yeah… Beach is looking pretty good to me m8. Thanks for understanding. 🙂
It’s a cold, wet and miserable day. Perfect. It’s not raining, though it was this morning. Just fine moisture that just hangs in the air making hat’s & umbrella’s useless. Had to go to Pharmacy for a couple prescriptions. The video store next door still has it’s ‘closing down’ sale going, so stopped in and got another 10 Blu-ray & 10 older DVD movies for $60! Gonna just chill with a good scotch to warm my bones & watch vid’s for a week! LOL I got SpaceBalls! lol I had that on VCR! Gonna watch that first! Need a laugh. 😀
The IR screws with the focus on the higher end cameras and affects the ccds on all of them. Most of the cameras don’t give you enough resolution to really help, and in most stores they are there to catch the employees misbehaving, not criminals. The state wants to waste all kinds of money on new car license plates because their automatic plate reading software can’t read the standard plate. Apparently it is cheaper to annoy millions of drivers than to fix the hardware/software of the plate readers.
I was certain that one group had the information I needed a week before I got it, and that information could have made planning for the missions I had so much easier. The information wasn’t considered critical to our mission, so we couldn’t get it until it was worthless.
Actually Spaceballs is a lot like the F-35 project, but funnier at a lower price 😉