Thursday, March 13, 2014

The North Carolina Confederate Veterans Memorial Forest


North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial
Unsurpassed Valor, Courage, and devotion to liberty”   www.ncwbts150.com
“The Official Website of the North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission”



This is a unique memorial of 125,000 Red Spruce trees -- one for each North Carolina soldier who served in the Confederate armies 1861-1865 – were provided by the North Carolina Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1940, and planted over 125 acres in Haywood County in Pisgah National Forest by the Forest Service  from 1941 to 1943. The memorial runs along the Blue Ridge Parkway for a half-mile near mile marker 422. 

Inscription:  “The United Daughters of the Confederacy in cooperation with the United States Forestry Service planted this 125 acre forest as a living memorial to the 125,000 soldiers North Carolina provided the Confederacy.  The 125,000 Red Spruce tree forest was planted over a three –year period, 1941-1943.”

The Memorial Forest was dedicated August 11, 1956; Re-dedicated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Sons of Confederate Veterans, August 11, 2001.

Raleigh publisher and former Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels spoke at the Vanderbilt Hotel memorial dedication ceremony in Asheville in July 1942, comparing the cruel postwar Reconstruction the American South endured to the plight of Nazi-occupied European countries during World War II.  Daniels stated that “The Southern people, aided by noble patriots in the North, overcame military rule and regained control of their affairs.  They have no doubt the suffering European nations will throw off [Nazi] rule by force and once again order their own way of life.”

Today the Red Spruce trees are well-over 50 feet tall and stand proudly as a testament and living memorial to the 125,000 North Carolinians who defended their families, homes, farms, State and country from enemy invasion – 40,000 of whom paid with their lives the ultimate sacrifice of the patriot.   

The monument was re-dedicated on 11 August 1956 with a permanent bronze UDC tablet, though vandalized and stolen in 1979 – was replaced with a wooden sign.

Trey Gowdy: The House Does Not Pass Suggestions, We Make Law


Benghazi: Al-Qaida vowed to kill ambassador

 

Months before the 2012 Benghazi attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, the U.S. State Department had at least three detailed intelligence reports warning of al-Qaida’s build-up in Benghazi and quoting a militant leader who vowed to kill the U.S. ambassador, according to a new book chronicling the heroism of Navy SEALs.

American diplomats in Benghazi made even more urgent pleas for beefed up security than previously thought, and officials also refused to consider at least five military scenarios that could have saved the lives of two Americans in the terrorist attacks.

In “Eyes on Target: Inside Stories from the Brotherhood of the U.S. Navy SEALs,” authors Richard Miniter and Scott McEwen point to newly discovered government reports showing Ambassador Chris Stevens and his colleagues desperately requesting additional security and better personnel than the suspect Libyans already on the job. Those intelligence reports came in addition to multiple requests for additional security.

More @ WND

Border Patrol Shifted $7M From Border Fence to Salaries

Via avordvet

 

As sequestration bore down in February 2013, the threat of furloughs for thousands of government workers was a common refrain from those warning of the dire effects of the across the board budget cuts. Janet Napolitano, then-head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), told Rep. Bennie Thompson in a letter that sequestration could force her department to idle law enforcement personnel for up to 14 days.  As it turned out, DHS did not furlough any personnel, but rather relied on cuts to other areas and shifting funds from other budgets to cover salaries.  For instance, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shifted $7 million from its border security fencing account to salaries and expenses.

Concealed Carry: Are back-up guns for civilians a good idea?

 Broken hammer on custom 1911.

For the over ten years, Craig Harper has been a staff instructor at Rangemaster.

He is highly trained, having taken courses from a number of the best firearms instructors in the US. He also has experience as a Military Policeman in the US Army.

A few days ago, Craig and I were discussing a recent incident in which a police officer was killed. The officer was shot in his dominant arm (right handed officer, shot in right arm).

Although conscious and trying to fight back, he was unable to reload his empty handgun with his non- dominant hand only, and was executed by his assailant.

7 Reasons Why a Machete is the Only Multitool You Really Need

 

If I could have only one tool, it’d be a machete. People around the world have long relied on the machete, kukri (shown here), and other close kin to hunt, fish, farm, build, process food, and fashion all types of tools. Every machete has at least seven smaller tools built into it. Your creativity and practice will unlock the full utility of each, but here’s a start.

1. Point Taken
The point can drill, scrape, open cans and, of course, kill zombies. To skin big game, grip the spine with one hand and use the tip to do the work.

NC: Marine Corps to create experimental task force with 25 percent women

Via LH


The Marine Corps will open new combat jobs to women, allow women to volunteer for combat specialty training previously closed to them and create a co-ed experimental task force to evaluate how female Marines perform as part of a ground combat unit, Marine officials said.

The task force will be made up of about 460 Marines, and about one quarter will be women, said Capt. Maureen Krebs, a Marine spokeswoman. The task force will look like a small battalion landing team with attachments such as artillery, tanks and amphibious assault vehicles — similar to the ground combat portion of a Marine Expeditionary Unit, but about half the size.

More @ S&S

Revolution in Ukraine: Point of view of US Department of State

 

Have no idea if valid or not.

Via ivakin_alexey

(extracts of correspondence between  him and his assistant in Ukraine)

From: vinmonp@gmail.ru


Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2014 4:56 PM


To: kmitre@usaid.gov


Subject: the revolution in Ukraine


Mickie,


My congratulations to you with victory!


I’m again convinced of your professionalism. May be you will tell me how pressed Yanukovich?


Nobody knows anything here.


Yuri


From: kmitre@usaid.gov


Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2014 11:45 AM


To: vinmonp@gmail.ru


Subject: re: the revolution in Ukraine


Yuri,


Politically, on 21 February 2014 President Yanukovich became a corpse. To induce him to sign an
agreement with the opposition, he had been given assurances of keeping his presidency - naturally,
with somewhat curtailed powers - and a parliament at least partly under his control. Given his
psychological state, it was important to dangle before him the carrot of keeping at least something
instead of losing everything.


The threat of "inevitable responsibility for any new victims" likewise played a role. The Netherlands
with its uncommonly opportune call for taking Yanukovich to court in the Hague also came in handy. 


In the end Yanukovich obediently signed the agreement sponsored by EU powers.


Having signed the document, Yanukovich rendered pointless the three-month heroic efforts of lawenforcers to contain the "Euro- Maidan," and the losses these defenders of the rule of law sustained. 


Apart from all else, this made his weakness as president apparent. As a result, he lost overnight
whatever support among his political environment he might have had.


What came next followed a tried and tested pattern: on the following day after signing the agreement
the opposition dominated by radicals forgot all about the pledges it had made and demanded
Yanukovich's instant resignation. The now docile parliament, the Rada, acceded to this demand. 


What else could it do, with armed "national revolutionists," as they call themselves, strutting around
the parliament building from which the official security men had fled? Anyway, Yanukovich lost his
nerve, as well as any support from any quarter - even from his Party of the Regions.


Among other decisions of the Rada, or its rump, was a reversal to the 2004 Constitution which makes
Ukraine a parliamentary-presidential republic, not presidential-parliamentary as before. According to this version of the Constitution, the Rada must form a ruling coalition which will appoint the prime
minister, who in turn must appoint members of his cabinet.


Well, no coalition in parliament has so far been formed - but the cabinet has been appointed. By
whom? Why, by the Maidan, of course, with important posts in the cabinet handed to Euro-activists
without any education or experience in business, legislation, or administration.


The new premier is Mr. Yatsenyuk - just as predicted (or dictated?) by Ms. Nuland of the "F*** the
EU!" fame. He has already promised two things: (a) unpopular measures (which, translated, means
"Tighten your belts, dear Ukrainians") and (b) signing the EU association agreement "within the
week, if need be."


This last point is quite feasible, as opponents of EU association are demoralized; they have no will
power to stand up to proposals from the "saviors of the nation."


A credit of trust is something that might help the future president of Ukraine - Ms. Timoshenko is a
likely candidate - push into the background the Right Sector and other ultra-nationalists who have
served their purpose. Anyway, Ms. Timoshenko has already requested for the list of Right Sector’s
members and the data about Bandera’s followers violations from all the archives including german
ones.


The losses of Right Sector activists in terms of prestige may be made up for with suitable
remuneration and a chance of settling in any country of their choice.


But this will, or may, come later, right before the presidential election, to pacify Ukraine's eastern
and southern regions, to persuade them that the presidential candidate is precisely the person to
protect them against the ultra-nationalists. For the present, however, the radicals are still needed - as a
weapon for suppressing these regions' faith in their own ability to resist.


Taking Ms. Timoshenko as the most likely presidential candidate, it is vital for her to prevent the
eastern regions from producing a regional political leader. Therefore she, or any other presidential
candidate, will have to do something about Kharkov Region governor Mikhail Dobkin. The region's
citizens will have to be prevented from organizing; the idea of federalization and financial
independence of the eastern regions must be compromised, if Dobkin or any other pro-Eastern leader
is to be defeated. We should try to engage some objective independent regional organizations like the
OSCE in settling these issues.


Russia is a serious constraint on any plans for conquering the Southeast. It has every moral right to
protect ethnic Russians pleading for help, and the experience of operations in South Ossetia in 2008.
Additionally, it has gained extra self-confidence after the recent vastly successful Olympics.


Inability to construct a normal relationship with Russia, which is due, among other things, to the new
Ukrainian powers' desire to reshape the country's east and south in the likeness of Western Ukraine,
will become a serious acid test for those new powers, and an added financial burden for the West.


Incidentally, Europe will have to prepare itself for a more substantial contribution to Ukraine's
finances before long, in view of Russia's expected freeze of its investment in that country's economy.


Russia simply cannot continue to finance a regime that is basically hostile to it - and to the huge
swathes of what is now Ukraine's territory populated predominantly by ethnic Russians and Russian
speakers.


K.Mickie Mitre
Foreign Service Officer
USAID


From: vinmonp@gmail.ru

Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2014 7:03 PM


To: kmitre@usaid.gov


Subject: the revolution in Ukraine


Mickie,


I’ll try to help you with eastern part of Ukraine. At the end of this week or may be at the beginning of
the next week we may be will hold “maidans” in Kharkov and Donetsk. As for Crimea there are
some troubles.


It’s better to send journalists. A bit later I will write you when and where to send them.


Yuri.

Korean war grandpa wrote his own obituary and it’s hilarious

Via LH

 Sam Bruhl (left) posted his grandpa Walter Bruhl’s obituary on Reddit.

Walter Bruhl Jr., right, with his grandson Sam Bruhl. The grandfather was 'preceded in death by his tonsils and adenoids in 1935; a spinal disc in 1974; a large piece of his thyroid gland in 1988; and his prostate on March 27, 2000.'

Walter George Bruhl Jr.’s ‘spirit was released from his worn-out shell of a body,’ which means his wife can finally buy that mink coat. The Delaware grandpa's self-written obituary has gone viral after his grandson posted it to Reddit.

Walter George Bruhl Jr. is dead.

“He is no more; he is bereft of life; he is deceased; he has rung down the curtain and gone to join the choir invisible; he has expired and gone to meet his maker,” reads the obituary of the grandpa, who was from Delaware but had retired to Florida.

Instead of treating death as something to be frightened of, Bruhl was ready and prepared. Grandson Sam Bruhl said the 80-year-old “cut out the middleman” and wrote his own obituary just before he “drifted off this mortal coil” Sunday. Walter even printed it out and left it in a conspicuous place so that his family would discover it.

Molotov cocktails in Bahrain

Via Daniel



Ukrainian military who refused to swear allegiance to the people of Crimea, leaving the Republic & S-300 transports

Via u_96

;Военнослужащие вблизи украинской военной базы в Симферопольском районе Крыма.

Ukrainian soldiers who refused to swear allegiance to the people of Crimea, began to leave the peninsula, "Interfax" First Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Temirgaliev Crimea.
 
"The bulk of the military units of Ukraine, located in the Crimea, went over to the defense forces. 

Same individual soldiers, mostly from the western regions, including this and sailors who refused to swear allegiance to the people of Crimea have begun to leave the peninsula. We provide them free output without weapons from the territory of Crimea ", - said Temirgaliev.

                                                                      More @ Interfax


******************************

  

Odessa: S-300.

Issa Rips CIA Over Feinstein Spying Allegations: 'Treason'

Via avordvet

 

 

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said he is incensed about allegations the CIA spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee, calling it “treason.”


“I think Senator Feinstein is as outraged as anyone and I share her outrage. I think the violation of the Constitutional separation of powers should be an offense of the highest level—virtually treason,” Issa told Breitbart News on Tuesday.

“Spying on the executive branch—spying on Congress or violating the separation of powers as to the Supreme Court or as to Congress is effectively treason. Treason—it’s written up in the Constitution,” Issa said of Feinstein’s revelations, adding, “I don’t know who gave the orders, but to spy on other branches is in fact a constitutional violation at the level of high crimes and misdemeanors and certainly should cause the removal of anyone involved.”

More @ Breitbart

US Rejects Ecuador’s Extradition Request For Fugitive Brothers Who Funneled $90,000 To Re-Elect Obama

 

Roberto and William Isaias are fugitives from Ecuador. Ecuador wants the U.S. to turn them over. The Obama administration said no. Now all we have to do is follow the money to understand why:

More @ Townhall

Insane Chairman Of Joint Chiefs: US Ready For "Military Response" In Ukraine

Via LH


Then again, our NATO treaty may be worth as much as our SEATO treaty was.

With diplomacy having failed miserably to resolve the Russian annexation of Crimea, and soon East Ukraine (and with John Kerry in charge of it, was there ever any doubt), the US is moving to the heavy artillery. First, moments ago, the US DOE announced in a shocking announcement that it would proceed with the first draw down and sale of crude from the US strategic petroleum reserve, the first since June 2011, in what it said was a "test sale to check the operational capabilities of system infrastructure", but is really just a shot across the bow at Putin for whom high commodity prices are orders of magnitude more important than how the Russian stock market performs.

And now, as Bloomberg just reported, the US has escalated even further, citing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, who "has claimed that in the case of an escalation of unrest in Crimea, the U.S. Army is ready to back up Ukraine and its allies in Europe with military actions."

More @ Zero Hedge

Shut up your mouth Obama!


SXSW crash scene minutes after deadly accident

Via LH


A man and woman were killed early Thursday after a suspected drunken driver fleeing from arrest crashed through barricades set up for the SXSW festival, Texas police said. Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said 23 others were injured, five critically, in the crash that happened around 12:30am as the driver tried to evade a pursuing police officer.


Friends of Bad Eagle


 David Yeagley
 David Yeagley is the great-great-grandson of Comanche leader Bad Eagle.
 

Dear Friends of Bad Eagle,

On behalf of the Yeagley family, I am sorry to inform you that David passed away early yesterday morning, March 11, 2014.

We await the glorious resurrection when we shall see him again.

A memorial service is planned for Friday, March 14 at 3:00 pm at Oklahoma City Central Seventh-day Adventist Church located at 4747 NW 63rd St.

The family plans to hold a second memorial service in Oklahoma City in the future, details to be posted at a later date.

Messages for the family may be posted online via the Chapel Hill Funeral Home website:

More @ Bad Eagle

*****************************

http://www.badeagle.com/badeagle/YeaWayne2.jpg


It’s A Warrior Thing. You Wouldn’t Understand.

WE INDIANS are supposed to hate the white man. Everyone tells me this. I’ve heard it from whites, blacks and even from Indians. Well, folks, I hate to disappoint you, but I like white people just fine.

To tell the truth, I rather admire them and their fascinating history. Oh, I know what you’re thinking. "Yeagley! How can you say that? How can you admire a people who slaughtered your ancestors, gave smallpox to those left alive, herded them onto reservations, made them all drunks, and as the final indignity sold their turquoise mines to the Japanese?" Well, the way I figure it, anyone who could whip our Indian behinds like the white man did deserves our highest respect. And anyone who can whip a Comanche (my tribe) deserves the Medal of Honor. I admire a man who can beat me. I dare say, deep inside all Indians at least those who are still warriors at heart there is a special admiration for the white man. 


More articles @  David Yeagley

Lingerie store accepts EBT card

Via Jeffery

http://creoleindc.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5e0053ef01a5118300be970c-800wi

A slip store in Gonzales has posted on their front doorway they accept many credit cards, including a EBT card. That’s a Electronic Benefits Transfer card.

Kiss My Lingerie, in Gonzales, Louisiana, sells adult specialty items. The store changed into a Magnolia Shopping Center on South Burnside Avenue a few years ago. But usurpation a EBT remuneration is something that happened 8 months ago, according to a owner.

The story of dead British soldier found clutching a picture of his wife and child and the German foe who returned it to his family

Via WiscoDave

A translation of the letter sent by Gefreieter Josef Wilczek to the Red Cross

With the Battle of Passchendaele raging around him, Sergeant Percy Buck - dying from a fatal wound - clutched a picture of his family.

On the back, he had written his dying wish, that someone would return it to his wife.
He would have hoped one of his comrades would fulfil the request, it can't have crossed his mind that it would be honoured by an enemy - let alone the one who had killed him.

However, this is the incredible story that has come to light now the soldier's grandaughter has unearthed the photograph among her father's belongings.

Christina Reynolds, 58, has uncovered the black and white photo almost 100 years after it was taken. It pictures the soldier with his wife, Bertha, and son - Mrs Reynolds's father - Cyril. 

More @ Daily Mail

Rare Confederate Morse carbine up for auction in Indy

Via WiscoDave

A Model 1861 Musket, a .58-caliber, percussion model rifle musket with bayonet, was built by William Muir and Company in Connecticut. The gun is up for auction at Wickliff Auctioneers in Carmel.

A rare, defective Civil War gun with Hoosier ties is up for auction this week.

Appraisers don't know who used it in the war and won't say who's selling it.

Just about the only thing about the weapon that isn't shrouded in mystery is that it will sell — and for a lot of money, at that.

"I've done gun shows from Baltimore to Las Vegas, almost 50 years," said Ed Higginbotham, 84, who was asked by an appraiser to help evaluate the weapon. "I've seen virtually everything you could imagine — but I've never seen a Morse carbine."

More @ USA Today

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition Is 50 Years old

 Via Ninety Miles From Tyranny


NC: Police shoot man dead after killing parents, officer and K-9

Via The Dorkfish Express


A long and complex manhunt for a man police say shot and killed his mother, father and a U.S. Forestry Service officer ended with the suspect’s death.

Police first went to the parents’ home in the 5500 block of Fish Hatchery Road around 8:45 a.m. Wednesday for a welfare check. Friends told police they hadn’t seen Levi and Rhonda Whisnant since last Friday.

Sheriff Steve Whisenant says it appears they died at least a day ago.

The discovery of the homicides was just beginning of a wild series incidents in the search for the suspect.

The sheriff’s office quickly named the victims’ son, 38-year-old Troy Whisnant, as a person of interest.  The case trickled into a North Carolina Highway Patrol investigation when troopers arrived on scene to assist. The highway patrol suspected Whisnant was also behind two recent vehicle thefts.

More @ WCNC