Quote:How do we know?

By the powers of the Internet.

Svenn Martinsen sent an inquiry to Bay Weekly from Norway. Martinsen sought photos of former AKL/FS ships now being used as fishing boats by Omega Protein Inc. of Reedville, Virginia. Specifically, he wanted to know about the Earl J. Conrad Jr. He’d been one of the excited kids who listened to radio broadcasts from the ship in 1966-’67. “I love those stations created by Don Pierson, of Eastland, Texas,” said Martinsen.

Thus our story began.

How World War II ships came to catch Chesapeake menhaden

Quote:In the budget races, the Air Force 'defenders' like Vandenberg lost out time and again to General LeMay's 'attackers.' But, nevertheless, the defenders produced a stream of million dollar 'minimum systems' and 'emergency coverage' requests to close the threats from the non-existent 'bomber gap'. The groundswell of their efforts spread across the nation, enabling the Air Force to persuade a large number of suitably frightened citizens to join an all-volunteer recon-naissance force known as the Ground Observer Corps. These highly motivated people, some 300,000-strong, started Operation Skywatch on 14 July 1952. They manned more than 10,000 observation posts, some on a 24-hour basis, to watch for low-flying Soviet aircraft slipping under the rudimentary radar net. At its peak in 1957, the Corps operated in 48 states with a peacetime army of 387,000 'regulars' and 170,000 'reservists' whose 19,000 observation posts ranged from lighthouses to the rooftops of private homes.

SIOP (pronounced Sigh-op) stands for the Single Integrated Operational Plan-single because it is the only contingency plan that accounts for the nuclear weapons of all branches of the United States' military, and integrated because it embraces all the nuclear contingency plans of the United States' regional commands in the Pacific, the Atlantic and Europe, plus the lesser forces of America's closest and only real nuclear ally, Britain. This plan was started in 1960 to wage a nuclear war against the Soviet Union.

Quote:THE BATTLE OF SYDNEY: Sabres, Meteors, Sea Furies And Two Blokes With A Bren Gun Battle A Runaway

On the morning of the 30th of August, Anthony Thrower of Lavinia Street, Granville was out for a pleasure flight when his Auster Archer decided to make a break for freedom. What followed was a madcap three hour chase involving four jet fighters, two Hawker Sea Furies and two blokes with a Bren Gun.

Given that this incident pre-dated the more famous Battle Of Palmdale by a year, I thought it was interesting to compare how more conventionally armed aircraft fared against a slow, but determined piston-engined intruder. I hope you find it entertaining. I have to admit that as a Brit, I enjoyed poking a little fun at my Australian friends... hopefully they can take it in the spirit it's intended.

Quote:We see that in certain Western states the results of the Second World War are de facto revised, and the verdicts of the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals are openly disregarded. These dangerous tendencies stem from a reluctance to acknowledge the direct culpability of the predecessors of today's Western elites in unleashing the world war, and the desire to erase the shameful pages of their own history, thereby encouraging revanchism and neo-Nazism. Historical truth is being distorted and suppressed to suit their current political agendas. Japanese militarism is being revived under the pretext of imaginary Russian or Chinese threats, while in Europe, including Germany, steps are being taken towards the re-militarisation of the continent, with little regard for historical parallels.

Quote:As a young journalist in search of a new direction in the late 1920s, Dr. Henderson traveled to Zurich to undergo analysis with Jung, the pioneering psychological theorist and rival of Sigmund Freud.

While in Zurich, he studied dream imagery and colors, symbols and archetypes, which Jung believed crossed cultures to be almost universally recognized. After attending medical school in London, Dr. Henderson returned to the United States and opened a psychoanalytical practice in Manhattan in 1938. He moved to San Francisco shortly thereafter and carried Jung's methods and ideas about a collective unconscious mind with him.

Dr. Henderson became most widely known for a related notion: that of a cultural unconsciousness in which a person's inherited impulses may be automatically filtered through his culture, sometimes to appear in sharply different forms. An example would be the channeling of aggression, in which the impulse might take the form of team sports, dance or warfare, depending on the surrounding culture.

Dr. Henderson first explained his idea in 1962, in a "most stimulating paper that added a dimension to Jung's theory about how we talk about images and emotions coming up from the psyche," said Dr. Thomas Kirsch, a psychiatrist and former president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology and the author of "The Jungians."

In 1967, Dr. Henderson looked at psychological aspects of initiation rites, in a study that combined religion and anthropology. That book, "Thresholds of Initiation," examined how a person might face and surmount various hurdles at different times of life.

Dr. John Beebe, a psychiatrist and former president of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, called it the "antithesis of a self-help book," saying that it made a distinction between a heroic figure in an extraordinary situation and the more commonplace experience of dealing with aging and other challenges.

In 2003, when he was 100, Dr. Henderson, with his fellow analyst Dyane N. Sherwood, published a study of the symbolism of alchemy, "Transformation of the Psyche." The book connected colors that appear in dreams with emotions and treated the alchemical notion of turning lead into gold as a metaphor for a movement of the unconscious mind toward the conscious.

Dr. Henderson passed away in 2007 at age 104.

Memorial site

Quote:A strike against a suspected drug vessel is a departure from how the U.S. has handled transnational crime in Southern Command. Typically, military forces support law enforcement agencies like the Coast Guard, which interdict drug vessels and arrest suspects for prosecution via several bilateral legal agreements with South and Central American countries.

The strike comes as the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have massed forces in the Caribbean against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s escalating rhetoric about the Nicolás Maduro regime in Caracas and its alleged support for transnational crime organizations.

As of Tuesday, 5,000 sailors and Marines are operating in the Caribbean as part of a White House mission to U.S. Southern Command, USNI News understands.

The Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group and the embarked 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit are operating near Puerto Rico in the northern Caribbean Sea, two defense officials confirmed to USNI News.

The mission of the ARG/MEU – which is led by flagship USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7) – is currently undefined, but comes as the Trump administration ramps up a warship presence in Southern Command amid its ongoing mission at the southern border and counter-drug efforts. USS Fort Lauderdale (LPD-28) and USS San Antonio (LPD-17) are the other two ships that make up the ARG.

Over the weekend the 22nd MEU started training in Puerto Rico with the territory’s National Guard, according to a Marine Corps news release.

“These operations offer a valuable opportunity to train alongside the National Guard, leveraging existing military training facilities on the island,” the release reads. “The 22nd MEU is actively seeking ways to expand collaborative training opportunities, including jungle training, combined exercises and community engagement events. These combined efforts are aimed at enhancing regional security, disaster response capabilities, and joint capacity building.”

Two guided-missile destroyers – USS Jason Dunham (DDG-109) and USS Gravely (DDG-107) – and one cruiser are also operating in the Caribbean, according to the USNI News Fleet and Marine Tracker. USS Lake Erie (CG-70) sailed north through the Panama Canal on Friday. As of Sunday, USS Sampson (DDG-102) was operating at the southern tip of the canal in the Eastern Pacific. Some of the surface combatants have Coast Guard law enforcement detachments onboard, USNI News understands.

Last week, Rubio met with SOUTHCOM commander Adm. Alvin Holsey in Florida to talk about the area of responsibility.

The Iwo Jima ARG left Norfolk, Va., last month, marking the first time a U.S.-based ARG with embarked Marines has deployed since December in part due to ongoing readiness challenges across the amphibious fleet.

The Navy increased its warship presence in U.S. Southern Command in 2020, sending both Littoral Combat Ships and destroyers to sail the waters to conduct counter-narcotics missions, USNI News reported at the time.

At the time, the service supported the Coast Guard’s law enforcement mission as part of the Joint Interagency Task Force South and Southern Command’s Campaign Martillo operations against transnational criminal organizations.

U.S. Military Strikes Suspected Drug Vessel as Warships Gather in the Caribbean

Quote:The 'United States Space Force'—one of Donald Trump's many 'big-brain genius' inventions—has proposed one of the most health-hazardous, tourism-ruining, skyline-blighting military installations ever proposed anywhere in the UK: a gigantic 27-dish radar network, named DARC, in the heart of our St. Davids peninsula.

The DARC radars proposed, as tall and wide as multi-storey buildings, would cumulatively produce radiation so powerful that scientific studies show the array would undoubtedly have the capacity to be unsafe for human residential habitation.

In April 1991, we at PARC (Pembrokeshire Against the Radar) saw the press statement that all local campaigns dream of: we had defeated the over-the-horizon radar, planned for then St. Davids Airfield, an extension of the MOD’s Cawdor Barracks army base.

The Minister’s suggestion that a few trees might be planted to hide the 135 ft high radar towers didn’t help, as the room erupted with laughter—and funnily enough, as if like clockwork, the MOD has tried to use the exact same comic suggestion that a bit of tree screening might help cover up 2024’s proposed monstrous own goal of a radar farm—on p. 85 of its very scoping report!

One of the zaniest ideas, inspired by Australians, was a dry-river boat race in Whitchurch. It involved a large group of adults, in full fancy dress, trying to fit into two-person cardboard boats, and then running around a disused military airfield as fast as they could, without falling over. PARC weren’t quite sure what the vicar made of it at first, but by the end, by all reports, even they couldn't stop him!



Many miles away from Pembrokeshire and in the twilight hours of a London night, however, Pembrokeshire’s MP Nicholas Bennett could be spotted, in a late night session in the House of Commons far from what he believed were the eyes of his constituents, seeming to support the radar before Parliament—in stark contrast to the undecided and unbiased tone he had calculatedly struck in the pages of local media.

Little did he know, however, that PARC had shown up in London that day—and they were listening to every word.

PARC Against DARC - Our Story

Quote:The West German state of Nordrhein-Westfalen (NRW) is slated to hold municipal elections in just under two weeks, on 14 September. Eighteen million Germans scattered across 31 districts and 396 municipalities will elect councillors, board members, mayors and district administrators.

It’s important to understand the scale of these elections and the enormous numbers involved: Tens of thousands are presently running for office in NRW. The exact number isn’t certain, but it may be as great as 90,000. Most of these candidates are totally ordinary people. They are not professional politicians and they are not widely known outside their communities.

Four days ago, the German press began reporting on bureaucratic chaos stirred up by a series of unexpected deaths in late stages of the NRW campaign. Each of these deaths happened so late in the game that ballots had to be reprinted and the postal vote repeated. The German economist and social media personality Stefan Homburg picked up the story and called the deaths “statistically almost impossible.” AfD co-chair Alice Weidel retweeted Homburg’s suspicions, ultimately attracting the attention of Elon Musk.

Despite the widespread interest in this story, I really think it’s a nothingburger. We may be looking at an unusual cluster of AfD deaths in the upcoming elections, but we don’t know enough to say for sure how improbable this cluster is. All we can really say is that the deaths themselves are not unexplained and that their coincidence doesn’t look that improbable on its face.

In all, twelve candidates have died in NRW. Six of these candidates are from the AfD. Three (Ralph Lange, Wolfgang Klinger and René Herford) had serious pre-existing conditions, a fourth (Wolfgang Seitz) also had health issues and died of a heart attack, a fifth (Stefan Berendes) is said only to have died of natural causes, and a sixth (Patrick Tietze) committed suicide. This information comes from the AfD in NRW, and ultimately from the bereaved families of each of these candidates. These are not mere cover stories, in other words.

If we assume – very conservatively – several thousand AfD candidates across NRW, with an average age of around 60, we are looking at an event (six deaths within one party in one month) that is at most a one-in-200 or a one-in-250 anomaly. That is rare, but it is not impossibly rare, and on its own it is not nearly enough to assume nefarious plots. Remember that Germany across all of its states has seen well over 200 municipal election cycles since the founding of the Federal Republic. Naturally, if you assume more AfD candidates or a higher average age, this cluster becomes far less anomalous.

AfD politicians of course face constant petty harassment and discrimination, and they are often the victims of disturbing violence. An organised campaign to take down AfD municipal candidates would however represent an incredible waste of resources. Most of these people wield very little power and at the local level party affiliations matter a little less. City councillors deal largely with pragmatic issues, and in consequence the AfD are not nearly so religiously excluded from municipal government as they are from state and federal government.

A plague chronicle

Quote:1. The lifeblood of our Navy is the Sailor: well-trained, connected, supported and fit to fight. In every ocean around the world, our national security interests are challenged by increasingly complex threats. Underpinned by our warrior ethos, we will rise to that challenge. For 250 years, we have been a world-class fighting Navy, and our strength lies in our Sailors. Our teamwork and esprit de corps are strengthened by our core values and devotion to our mission.

2. We must resource the Navy our Nation Needs. I am committed to the well-being of our Sailors and their families – providing them with state-of-the-art platforms, world-class facilities and dependable support through our Total Sailor and Family Action Plan.

We will leverage the insights and lessons learned from the past to improve and rebrand our Culture of Excellence initiative to its new focus – Total Sailor: Fit to Fight.

3. Today, I have directed your Navy leadership to take the steps necessary to ensure that No Sailor Will Live Afloat. We will invest in unaccompanied and family housing in addition to optimizing our new BAH authority to ensure every sailor resides in housing that is clean, comfortable and safe.

4. During my term, we will transform our galley facilities to ensure they are designed to meet the nutritional needs and choices of our sailor’s modern-day lifestyle. It is paramount that we modernize food service to deliver healthy and flexible options.

5. Effective immediately, the Secretary of the Navy has directed we convene a focused assessment of your uniforms and seabag. We will streamline uniform requirements to ensure you have affordable, available and durable service clothing that you are proud to wear.

The goal will be to reduce the number of uniforms while respecting our hard-earned traditions that makes our Navy so special.

6. You have grown up in a digitally connected world where disconnection means isolation. Therefore, I have mandated efforts to improve cell service on our installations and bring free Wi-Fi to all of our barracks.

7. I have also ordered changes to the NAVADMIN process ensuring our sailors are able to find clear and correct information in one singular location. We will not use NAVADMINs to work around the effort required to properly change the base instructions any longer.

8. Additionally, I’ve directed Navy leadership to revisit prior efforts such as sailor pay to ensure our previous corrective actions are still working so that each sailor is receiving the correct amount of pay and entitlements in a timely manner.

9. You are my priority and I need you focused on the fight. This is the first of many efforts to improve your Quality of Life – so, stand by for what’s coming next.

10. Built in the Foundry – Tempered in the Fleet – Forged to Fight.

11. ADM Daryl Caudle, 34th Chief of Naval Operations sends.

CNO Caudle’s First ‘C-Note’ to the Fleet