I Am So Right

For my inaugural post here at Frogspot’s home on the web, I was contemplating a serious, in-depth piece on (what else?) the “nuclear option”. While doing some research on the subject however, I came to the unsettling realization that I am way over the line. To make matters worse, I am on the right side of that line, which pretty much negates any First Amendment rights I might have otherwise had. Since I am already wrong, I may as well stay that way, and what better way to introduce myself to you, the gentle reader of this blog, than a good old-fashioned rant.

You see, I am way out of touch with the mainstream of America, or so believes Senator Harry Reid (oh, you can bet we are going to talk more about him), who speaks for a minority of Americans. By virtue of my support for some radical, off-the-reservation judicial nominees, I lack, "…a commitment to the fundamental rights and liberties we hold so dear."However, just for clarification, let us explore what some of those fundamental rights and liberties might be:

Abortion – there, I said it. Not “women’s right to chose”, not “reproductive health”, but abortion, the killing of an unborn child; which, incidentally, in the case of Scott Peterson may get him killed twice. How about we take a vote, see what people really think about it. My guess is that since we cannot even call it for what it is, or talk about it in polite conversation, without someone calling us the antichrist, it cannot be very popular.
I am not advocating mean spiritedness to people who have undergone these procedures; on the contrary, I believe they have already suffered enough. Incidentally, I wander how many of the most rabid supporters of abortion have actually had one.

“Virtual” child pornography – I know I am way out of the box on this one. With the rash of child abductions in this country, and the incredible proliferation of real child pornography, I am certain that, most “mainstream” Americans would think it was just fine that their neighbors were exercising their God given (isn’t that where we get them from – as per the Constitution) freedom of expression by purveying pictures of innocent children engaged in sexually explicit acts, provided of course that the acts themselves are computer simulations; perhaps with the disclaimer that any resemblance to any real children is purely coincidental.

Gay marriage – just look at all the states that have put it to the people.

There is more, but you get the picture; the only way the left can get what they want is to find jurists who will invent “…fundamental rights and liberties…” out of thin air and then claim they have been in the constitution all along - dumb frogmen like me have been to stupid to see them there (that is assuming we can even read).

How about John Bolton and the UN - The best the UN had to offer is the same person who, more than anyone else, was responsible for the peacekeepers sitting idly by while 800,000 men, women and children were murdered. Since being promoted to the office of Head Honcho, Kofi Annan has, at best, been ineffective. At worst, he has conspired to assist terrorist nations for personal profit and obstructed the US from pursuing its GWOT. Now to me, John Bolton seems like a logical choice to go in and fire some folks up; after all, we are bankrolling the organization, we ought to have some say.
But you see, he is too radical, way out of the mainstream. If the Democrats want to see radical, how about we round up the whole lot of UN “diplomats” and send them down to Gitmo, where they can be claimed after their respective countries pay their parking fines.

There is much more to discuss, but I already know that Froggy is going to chastise me for going over my allotted number of words. But you know, I feel better; what do you expect from a guy who is ideologically in league with the antichrist himself, James Dobson?

Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes!

Froggy is flying to Vegas tonight for a one night only dice-o-rama! I love playing craps, and with a shoulder surgery (unrelated to my bike accident) on Monday, and the tadpole getting ready to swim out, this will be my last chance for a while. If anybody likes to play craps and will be in Vegas tonight, email me. Otherwise wish me luck.

The Frogosphere Expands

It is with great pleasure that I announce to you the addition of a Teammate to Froggy Ruminations. I had been hoping that a fellow frog would climb up onto the soapbox with me and add even more incisive commentary to the issues of the day from a SEAL point of view. The author of the preceeding post is none other than Scott King, who other SEALs will likely know quite well.

I would rather have Scott reveal himself to you to the extent he is comfortable about his work, and family, and the suchlike. He is a very intelligent man, and he writes and speaks with a passion that is not often seen. I am not sure how much he is going to be contributing to Froggy Ruminations or for how long, but I hope and you will too that he sticks around for a while.

Senator Frist, Standby to Standby

While it is not my custom to post entire emails from readers (and this is likely the last time), I received this from a close friend and brother in Christ and in arms. His take on this is nothing if not passionate and sincere, and I happen to agree with him.


Dear Senator Frist,

I am writing to exhort you, lest there be in your mind any thought of hesitation, that the hour has come to end this process of judicial filibuster, by which the enemies of this country continue to subvert its very foundations. I will not presume to lecture you on the constitutionality or even the fairness of this issue, nor will I condescend to addressing the fears of those who urge caution in this matter. I will, however, relay to you a perspective that I have not heard on the talk shows, nor read in the blogs, and that I hope will challenge you as an American and as a man of God.

During the thirteen years that I spent serving my county in the SEAL Teams, I often contemplated the oath I had taken to, “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic”. I imagine that you look at that oath somewhat differently, but I hope with no less gravity, than I did. As I write, we have thousands of men and women risking everything they have to uphold their oaths. Some are losing marriages, some are losing relationships with their children and some are losing their very lives.

What do we owe these men and women? What do we owe their widows and orphans? Do we owe them a land where we call right wrong and wrong right? We certainly do not; we owe them guidance, compassion, gratitude and above all truth. We owe their children a chance to grow up in a land not assailing their innocence and purity form every side. We owe them the same level of courage and commitment which we have asked of them and with which they have so selflessly responded. While they fight for us elsewhere, we should fight for them here.

If some in the Republican majority want to falter, let them. Call them out. Cowardice under fire is a shameful thing but cowardice under pressure from a corrupt media and a minority of moral reprobates is, in my opinion, infinitely worse. I believe that if David (the one after God’s own heart) were here today he would have something to say. Who are these uncircumcised Philistines that they should defy the armies of the living God? This is a time for moral certainty. Do not fear, be of good courage - this should be the rallying cry of the day.

This is not just a battle, this is the battle; many are praying for you. Lead.

Respectfully,

Noal S. King

Welcome Home

I learned yesterday that three good friends of mine just returned home safely from a deployment to Iraq. I hadn’t had much contact with them since they stepped off, but it’s great to know that they’re home safe. Don’t expect any exposés about their deployment, the SEAL Teams are more tight lipped than ever these days, and I don’t want to get my friends in any trouble.

They have this funny idea about public relations over there that amounts to trying to keep a lid on controversial issues, while trying to keep a lid on the heroic service of the SEALs fighting in the GWOT at the same time. It’s not the ‘strategery’ that I would employ under the circumstances, but then I’m not in charge. I’ll just stick to relaying open source material on the ‘prisoner abuse’ court-martials, and pray that there are no new fatalities to report.

The Horse Race is On… Sort of

The man behind the blog that kept me sane during the election is back. Jay Cost, the purveyor of the Horserace Blog which was RIGHT ON THE MONEY last November in predicting the outcome of the Presidential Election. He swept aside the BS from pundits, the MSM, and bloggers with an axe to grind with some seriously in depth analysis, state by state, of the election. His blog was required reading for political junkies like Froggy in the electoral season, providing a lifeline for conservatives that “knew” what was going on despite every admonition to the contrary in the MSM. He crunched the numbers, analyzed Rove’s strategery, and delivered the most detailed and yet concise prediction of the election outcome. He made fools of all the big money pollsters, and paid no attention to day to day campaign spin and stuck to the fundamentals.

He recently wrote a column on Hillary for the Wall Street F’in Journal that once again cuts through the crap and lays out the truth in doses that will cause anaphylactic shock for liberals who dare to take their medicine. His thesis: Hillary is the worst politician in America. Not in the way you might think either. There is no one worse than her at garnering that most precious of political attributes… sincerity. She is unique among liberals and conservatives alike because no matter what she says or does, she is universally assumed by America (including the entire MSM) to carefully script every syllable that passes her lips for political effect. No one believes that any of her recent moves to the center are anything but craven acts of political expediency, which of course they are. Nobody telegraphs a punch like Hillary. Her adoring minions in the MSM don’t even attempt to cover her tracks anymore; they gleefully report her march to the center as positioning for 2008 without remorse. Jay has the goods as usual so don’t forget to check him out.

He is posting at RedState.org nowadays so you won’t have to miss a minute of the fun.

Death From Above

As usual the moonbats over at Mother Jones are changing the urine stained sheets of liberal bedwetters across the nation. By the way, don’t bother clicking the link and reading their latest crisis alert. When I scanned it I did find something really cool. The Common Aero Vehicle is a new DARPA project for the DOD that will provide the US with a 2 hour terrorist zapping capability anywhere on the globe. It’s a sub-orbital UAV that carries a 1000 lb. payload of ass whuppin’. Yee haw! Thank you Mother Fu oops Jones for bringing this to my attention.

Via RCP

Title Company Babes

I don’t know how many of you work in the Real Estate field or have recently purchased a house in California, but there is something about those title company babes. While most of the commercial real estate professionals I come in contact with are fairly buttoned down types, the title company babes let it all hang out.

I went to another ICSC function this morning and (fortuitously?) sat next to this LBFM (If you know that acronym, keep it to yourself ‘cause I’m not splainin’ it) in a micro-mini skirt with cleavage busting out all over the place. These girls are ostensibly selling their services as escrow officers, but sometimes it seems more like offering escort services. I’ve “heard” that strippers are very aggressive in the clubs trying to get “gentlemen” to buy lap dances and overpriced drinks, and I would imagine that the hard sell I was getting this morning is something akin to that.

“Oooh, you’re a developer? Do you have any projects coming up? Really, that’s great! Mixed use, huh? How many units do you think you’ll build? OK. Well, you know, I have a lot of experience working on big projects like that…”

Of course there’s a lot of bending over, pulling the skirt down, grasping of my arm and everything else she can think of short of backing up into me. I didn’t fully get it at the time, but the same phenomenon was at work when I was a Customs Agent in Calexico, CA. There are very few attractive women in the Imperial Valley as a general rule. But if you happen to run into one, she either works at the title company or is a Mexicali stripper.

Which brings me back to the point. Where do they get these title company babes from?

Bruised Rib Blogging

Froggy is down for the moment after going over the handlebars of his mountain bike this weekend. Prayers and generous portions of sympathy will be accepted but not expected.

A Worthy Cause

On Sunday, April 24 2005 at 0900, 2 Navy SEALs from BUD/S Class 202 will paddle a two-man kayak from San Francisco to San Diego to raise money for the families of two fallen comrades.

Mike Price was a Navy corpsman performing contract security for EOD personnel in Iraq when he was killed. He left behind his daughter, Amanda.

David "Jake" Tapper was a SEAL killed in Afghanistan in 2003 when the hummer he was driving was ambushed by AQ forces. In that ambush, a very close friend of mine was shot twice in the neck and once through the shoulder, but managed to survive and subsequently return to Afghanistan in 2004. Jake earned 2 Bronze Stars with "V", the Purple Heart, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, and 2 Combat Action ribbons (one per deployment). Jake is survived by his wife and FOUR children Raimen, Jared, Vanessa, and Talia.

If you are able, these are worthy causes and deserve your support. Seems to me some of you may have gotten a tax refund recently; let your conscience be your guide.

Naval Special Warfare Foundation
Kayak Paddle for David Tapper's Family
P.O. Box 5965
Virginia Beach, VA 23471

Worried About Enemy SCUBA Divers?

Don’t be. Every six months for the last few years a story comes out about AQ “frogmen” planning to conduct submerged demolition attacks on US warships, ports, and maritime facilities. They envision the climactic scene from the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball where the evil forces of SPECTRE attempt nuclear holocaust only to be foiled by 007 and what I suppose had to be SEALs in a pitched underwater battle between opposing divers. While combat swimmer operations can have an important role in a conflict between nations with significant naval forces, it is not a tactic that lends itself to terrorism.

First of all, clandestine underwater navigation is not easy. In fact, an argument can be made that ship attacks are the most technically challenging SEAL mission in our repertoire. The diving equipment is highly specialized and takes significant amounts of training to operate effectively and safely. Even with the proper equipment and training, a combat swimmer is limited by not only hard limits on dive time, but “soft” limits on the diver’s physiology and stamina. These limits could be extended if the dive was planned as a “one way trip” as is the custom of our islamofascist enemies, but finding and training people with the physical and mental abilities to carry out such a difficult attack is made terribly difficult when they are also expected to be martyrs. The longer the dive, the larger the navigational error box each “leg” of the infiltration becomes, making it harder to find the target vessel on the dive plan. When this happens, the diver’s only option is to “peek” and visually acquire the target exposing him to compromise.

Then there’s the fact that the amount of demolition that a diver can carry is obviously subject to extreme limitations. The demolition charges used by SEALs to attack enemy vessels are highly complex and must be manufactured by contractors with decades of experience and research time. You can’t just wad up a ball of C-4, slap it on the hull of the vessel, and light some time fuse with a flare underwater. Splashproof firing assemblies can be improvised, but not with the level of certainty needed for a ship attack. There are attachment issues to consider as well as anti-removal devices that must be addressed. Fully loaded out with state of the art anti-ship limpet mines, a SEAL Platoon can only hope to disable a few ships on outer moorings thus preventing an enemy fleet from leaving port for a few days to a week. Of course submersible vehicles are capable of much more, but then you’re talking about even more training, equipment, and complexity.

Finally, the REASON AQ divers would never have the sack to enter any major US port, or come near US vessels in the Persian Gulf. Scroll down to the Mk 6 dolphin program which is managed by Navy EOD. Mk 6 dolphins are a diver’s worst nightmare, and that is no understatement. These marine mammals are trained to find and attack divers that are operating in the patrol area. Imagine swimming around a US warship laden with explosives at night with ill intentions on your mind, and suddenly a 500 lb. dolphin rams into your side at full speed out of nowhere. Of course this dolphin has a nose cone attached to a .45 caliber contact initiated round for good measure. Or how about a needle connected to a CO2 cartridge that injects the diver with gas forcing him to rapidly surface? Essentially the dolphin will continue to ram the diver until he surfaces… dead or alive. At which point, the guy will either have had a stroke or heart attack, certainly several broken bones, and perhaps even be shot from the pier. These things are for real, and they don’t dick around.

After considering the cost, most terrorists would rather go with the old car bomb standby or the spray and pray at a crowded shopping mall routine. To add insult to injury, dolphins are very, shall I say, sexually aggressive by nature. Mk 6 dolphins don’t generally contain their appetites to their own species either. I’m not sure how that could be explained to Allah in the afterlife.

Taking Momma to the Beach

Momma, now 61/2 months pregnant, could use and will receive a long weekend at the beach while the grandparents watch the tadpole. Not likely to be blogging much, but I have a book on the Mutiny on the Bounty that I'm looking forward to reading. On the subject of books, I just read a great novel called Thunderhead. It's a great thriller about an important Anasazi Indian archaeological discovery in southern Utah. Loaded with plot twists all of them shocking and intense. Give it a shot.

For some fun light reading this weekend try the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog. It reproduces and links to stories about people shooting dirtbags that try to break into their homes. It is good for 15 minutes of fun any time day or night. Enjoy.

For you Spec Ops junkies in the house I present to you a three fellow warriors, two of them are new to the blogosphere: Jack Army and SF Alphageek. JB's Sanctuary Blog is a veteran blogger and well worth a visit. Of course, all three are green beenies, but don't hold that against them. They are all operators and that's what counts. So far, Froggy is the only SEAL blogger on the web (as far as I can tell); an elite within an elite if I may say so... and I may!

By the way, DON'T try this over land if you don't have to (Freefall only baby). But this is a fun way to enter the water if you get the chance. Via Jen

Froggy quote of the month:

However, there is a ditch surrounding Abu Ghraib and the Marines that manned the towers said that they were literally mowing fools down. IN the morning everyone saw the ditch, it was filled with body parts. I'm sorry, but you find someone's jaw, I'd count that as a kill, but I'm not the defense department.

From the Mad Ogre (Scroll down to April 6th 2100) Via Greyhawk

Have a good weekend all.

The Airport Security Post

Although this is well covered territory, I feel it’s time that Froggy puts in his two cents. I have been flying commercial air quite a bit lately with the advent of my business interests in Denver. First of all, I hate flying commercial as a general rule. Flying military aircraft is much more pleasant. On military aircraft, I usually set up a hammock, curl up in a sleeping bag, and enjoy a good book. Of course this kind of luxury is not available to even the denizens of first class on a commercial flight. There aren’t movies or food service on military aircraft, but the airlines don't either for that matter. The box lunches prepared by the Air Force are top notch, and my laptop has better movies than any commercial aircraft. But I digress…

As a result of the absurd security regime that is generally in effect in American airports, I have come up with a routine designed to get me through the morass as quickly as possible…until now. Part of the routine is to wear shoes that do not set off the metal detector. The silly indignity of putting my shoes through the x-ray machine is more than I can bear, so I choose not to. Before I passed through the machine, I was “informed” that I should put my shoes on the conveyor belt or that I “might” be directed to secondary inspection (government molestation). Knowing that my shoes would pass muster, I declined, passed through the metal detector cleanly and was summarily directed to secondary. At which point I was wanded, patted down, and more importantly, detained while my laptop and jacket were sitting out for some yahoo to snatch. In Denver, where I had passed unscathed with my technique on previous visits, this scene played out in precisely the same manner. This time I asked why I had been referred to secondary since my shoes had proven non threatening at the metal detector. The answer: “You fit a profile.”

“What profile?” I asked.

“Well, your SHOES fit a profile.”

My shoes?! Fit a profile?! Whatever. So there you have it folks. While the TSA is unbending in its policy toward profiling actual people, they have now embarked upon a campaign to profile people’s shoes. Feeling safer? Me too.

Bravo Zulu Sergeant Smith

Today President Bush posthumously awarded Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith the Congressional Medal of Honor. The award was accepted by Sgt. Smith's 11 year old son, David. Sgt. Smith's heroic actions caused him to kill approximately 50 enemy soldiers and saved the lives of at least 100 of his own. It seems to me that a medal, even this medal, is not nearly enough to recognize the unspeakable valor of this man.

I met two Medal of Honor winners at McP's bar in Coronado, CA just 2 months ago. McP's is a SEAL Team bar owned by Greg McPartlin who was a SEAL corpsman in Vietnam. I recognized Mike Thornton from across the room, and I immediately got up, thanked him and shook his hand. I am not one who is easily impressed by people or who readily engages "celebrities", but to meet a CMH winner is something more than your average bar conversation. He was speaking with three other men, and I'm afraid I completely interrupted their conversation while introducing myself. Mr. Thornton later introduced one of his companions as a fellow CMH recipient, and both men graciously shook my hand and spent a few minutes chatting with my friend and I. I called my dad the next day to tell him that I had met a Medal of Honor winner, and I welled up with emotion when I described to him the actions leading to the award.

Today was a travel day for me, so I did not get a chance to watch the ceremony which is a bitter disappointment. While I understand that with the passing of the Pope (another great and courageous man), this ceremony was given short shrift by the media, but I believe Sgt. Smith and his family deserve more recognition then they have received. If anyone has a link to the video, I'd sure appreciate it.

Back to Denver

Froggy's going to Denver for a few days. See you when I get back.